Pansharpening under thin cloudy conditions is a practically significant yet rarely addressed task, challenged by simultaneous spatial resolution degradation and cloud-induced spectral distortions. Existing methods often address cloud removal and pansharpening sequentially, leading to cumulative errors and suboptimal performance due to the lack of joint degradation modeling. To address these challenges, we propose a Unified Pansharpening Model with Thin Cloud Removal (Pan-TCR), an end-to-end framework that integrates physical priors. Motivated by theoretical analysis in the frequency domain, we design a frequency-decoupled restoration (FDR) block that disentangles the restoration of multispectral image (MSI) features into amplitude and phase components, each guided by complementary degradation-robust prompts: the near-infrared (NIR) band amplitude for cloud-resilient restoration, and the panchromatic (PAN) phase for high-resolution structural enhancement. To ensure coherence between the two components, we further introduce an interactive inter-frequency consistency (IFC) module, enabling cross-modal refinement that enforces consistency and robustness across frequency cues. Furthermore, we introduce the first real-world thin-cloud contaminated pansharpening dataset (PanTCR-GF2), comprising paired clean and cloudy PAN-MSI images, to enable robust benchmarking under realistic conditions. Extensive experiments on real-world and synthetic datasets demonstrate the superiority and robustness of Pan-TCR, establishing a new benchmark for pansharpening under realistic atmospheric degradations.

Huachen Qi, Ruiyu Zhuo, Bowen Shi, Xiang Chang, Fei Chao, Changjing Shang, Qiang Shen. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2026.

Few-shot object detection (FSOD) poses a significant challenge due to the difficulty of learning robust and discriminative object representations under limited supervision. A widely adopted solution is the two-stage fine-tuning framework, wherein knowledge acquired from a large-scale base dataset is transferred to a novel dataset containing only a small number of labeled instances. However, this framework is prone to systematically misclassifying novel objects as background, primarily due to incorrect background label caused by the domain gap between base and novel datasets-an issue exacerbated by the sparse representation of novel categories. In this work, we show that this inherent weakness can be exploited by explicitly redefining the category structure and transferring the representations learned during the base training stage. Building on this insight, we propose a simple yet effective framework grounded in the Product of Experts (PoE) formulation, which estimates the joint distribution over background and novel categories by combining the unnormalized logits from independently trained classifiers. Notably, it does not require modifications of the base model or repetition of the base training phase. Furthermore, we introduce a strategy for identifying additional novel-category instances within the base dataset, which effectively augmenting the training set for fine-tuning. The resulting method is architecture-agnostic, imposes negligible overhead, and integrates seamlessly with existing two-stage fine-tuning pipelines. Extensive experiments on PASCAL VOC and COCO demonstrate that the proposed method yields consistent improvements across different baselines, achieving significant gains over state-of-the-art FSOD approaches.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) supports inference with sparse rule bases and plays a key role in Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) fuzzy model-based reasoning such as regression and real-time prediction. Current TSK-based FRI methods mainly employ distance-driven or rule-level optimisation strategies, implicitly assuming an unchanged geometric structure of the rule base. Recent findings, however, show that uneven variance allocation and directional imbalance in input data can induce rule selection bias, materially affecting interpolation behaviour. This paper introduces a Variance-Redistribution-Driven mechanism for TSK-based FRI algorithms. With a one-to-one orthogonal transformation in the input data supported by principal component analysis, the method redistributes variance across data dimensions while strictly preserving the original geometric and topological relationships of the data. The transformed variance structure propagates to the generated fuzzy rule base, yielding more directionally balanced rule selection and improved interpolation stability. The VRF mechanism functions as a preprocessing step and can be directly coupled with existing TSK-based FRI algorithms without increasing online computational complexity. This work not only delivers a simple and general optimisation method for a class of TSK-based FRI methods, but also extends the foundational theory of direction-aware FRI optimisation by clarifying how input-space variance reshaping influences rule induction and interpolation bias. Experiments on benchmark datasets confirm that VRF reliably enhances accuracy and robustness, while also exposing directional-sensitivity-dependent limitations that motivate further parameter-specific analysis for future.

Whilst Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based object tracking methods can achieve promising results on traditional well-lit datasets, it is challenging to accurately locate targets in low-light images taken in nighttime scenes, even for state-of-the-art (SOTA) trackers. Existing solutions often disregard potential image features beneficial for object tracking or focus solely on improving human perception, making it difficult to balance image enhancement and object tracking tasks. To address this issue and attain reliable nighttime unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking, we propose a lightweight Pyramid Attention-based low-light image enhancer, which serve as a plug-and-play solution before the trackers. In addition, we introduce a Pyramid Attention Module (PAM) to enhance the capability for multi-scale feature representation of images as image features are difficult to distinguish under low-light conditions. Experimental results reflect the effectiveness of our method in dealing with poor illumination situations.

Ship detection using remote sensing imagery is a crucial research area with both military and civilian applications. However, it remains challenging due to limitations in current ship datasets, such as insufficient volume, incomplete annotations, and inaccuracies. Additionally, ships often exhibit arbitrary orientations, dense clustering, varying aspect ratios, and significant dimensional changes. To address these issues, this paper advances ship detection from both data and methodological perspectives. First, a new dataset, ORSISOD, is introduced. This dataset includes seven finely categorized ship types, annotated with rotated bounding boxes, which are more appropriate for ship detection than traditional horizontal boxes. Second, a novel rotated ship detection method is proposed, incorporating a Dynamic IOU Threshold Selection (DITS) module and a Positive Sample Quality Assessment (PSQA) module. DITS adjusts the IOU threshold based on ship size and shape, while PSQA assesses sample quality using ship aspect ratio and angle information. The ORSISOD dataset was tested on 12 object detection algorithms, providing benchmarks for ship detection. Furthermore, the proposed method was evaluated on both ORSISOD and DOTA datasets, demonstrating superior performance.

Hyperspectral Image (HSI) cross-scene classification is a challenging task in remote sensing, particularly when real-time processing of Target Domain (TD) HSI is required, and data cannot be reused for training. While deep learning methods have shown promising results, the generalization ability of HSI representations remains limited, mainly due to class label imbalance. This paper introduces a dual-stage learning framework based on transfer learning to enhance classification accuracy in the TD. The framework includes a self-supervised learning stage and a supervised fine-tuning stage. The self-supervised stage focuses on learning robust representations by leveraging inherent structures within HSI data, while the fine-tuning stage uses training labels to extract semantic information. A masked diffusion model predicts masked tokens from unmasked ones, capturing both high-level structures and fine details in HSI data. An efficient spatiospectral Transformer, which removes self-attention from the decoder, is proposed to enhance the self-supervised process. This design allows mask tokens to obtain information from visible tokens without interacting with each other, reducing sequence length and computational costs. By decoding each mask token conditionally independently, only a subset of masked tokens is processed. Extensive experiments on two public HSI datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art techniques.

Diffusion models have surpassed Generative Adversarial Networks in generating high-quality, high-resolution images, enhancing detail and diversity. However, diffusion models still demand significant time and computational resources. Current work indicates that the quality of generated images is tied to sampling time steps, with each phase in the generation process affecting training and output differently. To address this challenge, this study introduces evolutionary algorithms to optimize the sequence of time-step sampling probabilities within the training phase of diffusion models. Due to traditional sampling probability sequences involving floating points and high dimensions, this paper simplifies the search space and redefines the search objectives of the evolutionary algorithm, making the search process more efficient. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method not only speeds up the training process of diffusion models but also reveals that effective time step sampling probability sequences from adjacent training phases have similar distributions, indicating that a stable sequence of time steps exists that can consistently accelerate network convergence throughout extensive training phases. These findings not only enhance training efficiency but also reduce computational costs while maintaining the quality of generated images. The source code is available in the GitHub repository: https://github.com/zhangbeibei00/O2TDM.

Attack detection is one of the main features required in modern defence systems. Despite the ongoing research, it remains challenging for a typical mechanism like network-based intrusion detection system (NIDS) to catch up with evolving adversarial attacks. They specifically aim to confuse a machine-learning based predictor. Without the knowledge of adversarial patterns, the best approach is generalising signatures learned from a dataset of legitimate connections and known intrusions. This work focuses on analysing non-payload traffics so that the resulting techniques can be exploited to a range of network-based applications. It investigates a novel means to deal with the problem of imbalanced classes. An optimised undersampling method is introduced to select a subset of majority-class representatives initially created through an ensemble clustering procedure. A weighted combination of criteria representing distributions within and between classes is proposed as the objective function for a global optimisation using the artificial bee colony (ABC). This approach usually outperforms its baselines and other state-of-the-art undersampling models, with ABC being more effective using the global best strategy than a random selection of solutions or an iterative greedy search. The paper also details the parameter analysis offering a heuristic guide for potential taking up of the proposed techniques.

Breast mass detection remains a significant challenge in developing effective computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) systems to assist clinicians in differentiating between benign and malignant masses. This paper introduces a novel fuzzy rule-based CADx approach for mammographic mass classification, utilising Transformation-based Fuzzy Rule Interpolation with Mahalanobis matrices (MT-FRI). This method enables reliable and interpretable classification by transforming attributes into a new feature space and interpolating for unmatched cases, making it well-suited to limited-data scenarios. The proposed approach integrates a structured pipeline encompassing feature extraction, feature selection, fuzzy rule generation, and interpolation inference, all designed to enhance transparency in diagnostic decisions. The system implementing the approach is evaluated on four widely-used mammographic datasets—INbreast, CBIS-DDSM, BCDR-D01, and BCDR-F01. For the first time, comparative experiments demonstrate that state-of-the-art fuzzy rule interpolative methods, particularly MT-FRI, achieve superior classification performance over representative classical machine learning models and deep neural networks. Unlike deep learning models, which require extensive labelled data and function as ”black boxes”, MT-FRI produces transparent, human-readable rules, supporting clinical interpretability. This work underscores the potential of MT-FRI as an adaptable and interpretable CADx solution for mammographic diagnosis, especially valuable in sparse-data environments.

Landscape painting is a gem of cultural and artistic heritage that showcases the splendor of nature through the deep observations and imaginations of its painters. Limited by traditional techniques, these artworks were confined to static imagery in ancient times, leaving the dynamism of landscapes and the subtleties of artistic sentiment to the viewer's imagination. Recently, emerging text-to-video (T2V) diffusion methods have shown significant promise in video generation, providing hope for the creation of dynamic landscape paintings. However, current T2V methods focus on generating natural videos, emphasizing the capture of details and the authenticity of physical laws. In contrast, landscape painting videos emphasize the overall dynamic aesthetic. Besides, challenges, such as the lack of specific datasets, the intricacy of artistic styles, and the creation of extensive, high-quality videos pose difficulties for these models in generating landscape painting videos. In this article, we propose landscape painting videos-high definition (LPV-HD), a novel T2V dataset for landscape painting videos, and noise-aware diffusion model (NADM), a T2V model that utilizes Stable Diffusion. Specifically, we present a motion module featuring a dual attention mechanism to capture the dynamic transformations of landscape imageries, alongside a noise adapter to leverage unsupervised contrastive learning in the latent space to ensure the overall beauty of the landscape painting video. Following the generation of keyframes, we employ optical flow for frame interpolation to enhance video smoothness. Our method not only retains the essence of the landscape painting imageries but also achieves dynamic transitions, significantly advancing the field of artistic video generation. Source code and dataset are available at https://github.com/llzlh21/NADM.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) has been successfully applied to address real-world problems where domain knowledge is incomplete, particularly in situations where observations do not directly match existing rules. However, most of the existing research focuses on fuzzy systems based on Mamdani models. Recently, a pioneering approach has been proposed for rule interpolation within Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) fuzzy models, employing two distinct techniques that cluster neighboring rules to facilitate interpolated outcomes. Although promising, these techniques have been developed through empirical methods, lacking formal representation and theoretical justification. This article formalizes such emerging empirical studies with the aim of strengthening the theoretical foundation of FRI. It introduces the location view of rules and rule bases regarding TSK models, analyzing the influence of individual rules within FRI techniques for such models. Through geometrizing sparse rule bases, comparative investigations of the empirical and theoretical results are carried out. Moreover, geometric projection of the rules is combined with a rule weight adjustment mechanism to reinforce the capability of the formalized FRI techniques. By embedding directional parameters into the rules, the resulting method increases the weighting of critical rules, strengthening the FRI algorithms' performance when many rules may be selected for interpolation. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the theoretical model and the consistency with the existing empirical findings. This highlights the potential and significance of formal studies in guiding algorithmic improvements on FRI with TSK models.

Few-shot object detection (FSOD) within remote sensing imagery has achieved great advancements in recent years. However, most existing methods are facing one key challenge while handling remote sensing images: many unlabeled instances in few-shot images are treated as background, which tends to degrade the generalization of the trained model severely. This paper presents HPMF, a Hypergraph-guided Prototype Mining Framework that addresses the challenge through joint optimization from three perspectives. The first is Hierarchical Reference Mining (HRM) which constructs a class-instance dual-driven prototype space that enables mining the unlabeled instances via cross-hierarchical similarity fusion. The second is a Robust Pseudo-box Estimator (RPE) that generates high-quality pseudo bounding boxes for the HRM-mined instances via adaptive density clustering and multi-statistic aggregation. The third is a Hypergraph-Guided Decoder (HGD) that introduces hypergraphs into the transformer decoder for group semantic modeling, enhancing high-order semantic association and similarity of instance features, thereby further improving the mining performance of the HRM module. Extensive experiments under various settings show that the proposed HPMF outperforms state-of-the-art methods consistently across multiple widely adopted remote-sensing FSOD benchmarks such as DIOR, NWPU-VHR10 v2, and HRRSD.

Nonlinear systems, such as robotic systems, play an increasingly important role in our modern daily life and have become more dominant in many industries; however, robotic control still faces various challenges due to diverse and unstructured work environments. This article proposes a double-loop recurrent neural network (DLRNN) with the support of a Type-2 fuzzy system and a self-organizing mechanism for improved performance in nonlinear dynamic robot control. The proposed network has a double-loop recurrent structure, which enables better dynamic mapping. In addition, the network combines a Type-2 fuzzy system with a double-loop recurrent structure to improve the ability to deal with uncertain environments. To achieve an efficient system response, a self-organizing mechanism is proposed to adaptively adjust the number of layers in a DLRNN. This work integrates the proposed network into a conventional sliding mode control (SMC) system to theoretically and empirically prove its stability. The proposed system is applied to a three-joint robot manipulator, leading to a comparative study that considers several existing control approaches. The experimental results confirm the superiority of the proposed system and its effectiveness and robustness in response to various external system disturbances.

Abstract Image Super-Resolution (ISR) is utilised to generate a high-resolution image from a low-resolution one. However, most current techniques for ISR confront three main constraints: i) the assumption that there is sufficient data available for training, ii) the presumption that areas of the images concerned do not involve missing data, and iii) the development of a computationally efficient model that does not compromise performance. In addressing these issues, this study proposes a novel lightweight approach termed Fuzzy Rough Feature Selection-based ANFIS Interpolation (FRFS-ANFISI) for ISR. Popular feature extraction algorithms are employed to extract the potentially significant features from images, and population-based search mechanisms are utilised to implement effective FRFS methods that assist in selecting the most important features among them. Subsequently, the processed data is entered into the ANFIS interpolation model to execute the ISR operation. To tackle the sparse data challenge, two adjacent ANFIS models are trained with sufficient data where appropriate, intending to position the ANFIS model of sparse data in the middle. This enables the two neighbouring ANFIS models to be interpolated to produce the otherwise missing knowledge or rules for the model in between, thereby estimating the corresponding outcomes. Conducted on standard ISR benchmark datasets while considering both sufficient and sparse data scenarios, the experimental studies demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach in helping deal with the aforementioned challenges facing ISR.

Abstract Representation‐based classification (RC) is an effective gauge of data similarity between a single instance and the whole dataset, which extends traditional individual‐wise distance metrics using representation coefficients. These coefficients show remarkable discrimination nature via various regularisation terms, but the interference from potentially uncorrelated objects involved in this single‐to‐global relation can degrade the effectiveness of the coefficients. In order to filter out those unproductive, or even counter‐productive, information from the decision making processes, this paper proposes a local representation‐based classification (LRC) algorithm to improve the classification accuracy or the RC approach. LRC uses a single‐to‐local relation induced by the local representation‐based neighbourhood (LRN) of each object, rather than the single‐to‐global relationship used by RC. Thanks to LRN, a compact and relevant dataset can be formed by selecting the most relevant data instances in the original dataset, to render a robust representation of a query. LRC was applied to multiple publicly available datasets, and the experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed LRC algorithm as evidenced by the higher classification accuracy and more noise‐tolerant capability in reference to alternative RC approaches. Moreover, the sampling ability of LRN is also verified via a comparative study.

PSNR-oriented models are a critical class of super-resolution models with applications across various fields. However, these models tend to generate over-smoothed images, a problem that has been analyzed previously from the perspectives of models or loss functions, but without taking into account the impact of data properties. In this paper, we present a novel phenomenon that we term the center-oriented optimization (COO) problem, where a model's output converges towards the center point of similar high-resolution images, rather than towards the ground truth. We demonstrate that the strength of this problem is related to the uncertainty of data, which we quantify using entropy. We prove that as the entropy of high-resolution images increases, their center point will move further away from the clean image distribution, and the model will generate over-smoothed images. Implicitly optimizing the COO problem, perceptual-driven approaches such as perceptual loss, model structure optimization, or GAN-based methods can be viewed. We propose an explicit solution to the COO problem, called Detail Enhanced Contrastive Loss (DECLoss). DECLoss utilizes the clustering property of contrastive learning to directly reduce the variance of the potential high-resolution distribution and thereby decrease the entropy. We evaluate DECLoss on multiple super-resolution benchmarks and demonstrate that it improves the perceptual quality of PSNR-oriented models. Moreover, when applied to GAN-based methods, such as RaGAN, DECLoss helps to achieve state-of-the-art performance, such as 0.093 LPIPS with 24.51 PSNR on 4× downsampled Urban100, validating the effectiveness and generalization of our approach.

Approximation biases of value functions are considered a key problem in reinforcement learning (RL). In particular, existing RL algorithms are hindered by overestimation and underestimation biases, i.e., value mismatching between RL's actual returns and action-value approximations limits the performance of RL algorithms. In this article, we first develop a new synthesis loss function for RL's action-value estimation integrating a regularization term and a modified "clipped double Q-learning" structure for solving overestimation and underestimation biases. To minimize the differences between action-value estimations and actual returns in RL, we develop a new discrepancy function to determine the type and magnitude of approximation biases. Then, two coefficients embedded in the synthesis loss are automatically tuned by minimizing the discrepancy function during training to minimize approximation biases. We further design a new actor-critic (AC) algorithm, named AC with synthesis loss (ACSL), by integrating the synthesis loss function and an error-controlled mechanism. Experimental results on continuous control tasks illustrate that the proposed ACSL algorithm outperforms other cutting-edge RL methods in many tasks and that the proposed synthesis loss function is easily implemented into other algorithms and significantly reduces approximation biases while improving performance. The proposed method can successfully handle many complex continuous control tasks and can greatly outperform other state-of-the-art algorithms on most tasks.

The writing sequence of numerals or letters often affects aesthetic aspects of the writing outcomes. As such, it remains a challenge for robotic calligraphy systems to perform, mimicking human writers' implicit intention. This article presents a new robot calligraphy system that is able to learn writing sequences with limited sequential information, producing writing results compatible to human writers with good diversity. In particular, the system innovatively applies a gated recurrent unit (GRU) network to generate robotic writing actions with the support of a prelabeled trajectory sequence vector. Also, a new evaluation method is proposed that considers the shape, trajectory sequence, and structural information of the writing outcome, thereby helping ensure the writing quality. A swarm optimization algorithm is exploited to create an optimal set of parameters of the proposed system. The proposed approach is evaluated using Arabic numerals, and the experimental results demonstrate the competitive writing performance of the system against state-of-the-art approaches regarding multiple criteria (including FID, MAE, PSNR, SSIM, and PerLoss), as well as diversity performance concerning variance and entropy. Importantly, the proposed GRU-based robotic motion planning system, supported with swarm optimization can learn from a small dataset, while producing calligraphy writing with diverse and aesthetically pleasing outcomes.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) empowers fuzzy rule-based systems (FRBSs) with the ability to infer, even when presented with a sparse rule base where no direct rules are applicable to a given observation. The core principle lies in creating an intermediate fuzzy rule-either interpolated or extrapolated-derived from rules neighboring the observation. Conventionally, the selection of these rules hinges upon distance metrics. While this approach is easy to grasp and has been instrumental in the evolution of various FRI methods, it is burdened by the necessity of extensive distance calculations. This becomes particularly cumbersome when swift responses are imperative or when dealing with large datasets. This article introduces a groundbreaking rule-ranking-based FRI method, termed RT-FRI, which overcomes the constraints of the longstanding distance-centric FRI approach. Instead of relying on distances, RT-FRI harnesses ranking scores for rules and unmatched observation. These scores are produced by amalgamating the antecedent attributes using aggregation functions, thus streamlining the rule selection procedure. Recognizing the rigid monotonicity demands of aggregation functions, a variant-DMRT-FRI-has been introduced to ensure directional monotonicity. Experimental results indicate that RT-FRI emerges as a highly efficient technique, with DMRT-FRI exemplifying a notable balance of accuracy and efficiency.

Fuzzy systems offer a formal and practically popular methodology for modeling nonlinear problems with inherent uncertainties, entailing strong performance and model interpretability. Particularly, semisupervised boosting is widely recognized as a powerful approach for creating stronger ensemble classification models in the absence of sufficient labeled data without introducing any modification to the employed base classifiers. However, the potential of fuzzy systems in semisupervised boosting has not been systematically explored yet. In this study, a novel semisupervised boosting algorithm devised for zero-order evolving fuzzy systems is proposed. It ensures both the consistence among predictions made by individual base classifiers at successive boosting iterations and the respective levels of confidence toward their predictions throughout the process of sample weight updating and ensemble output generation. In so doing, the base classifiers are empowered to gradually focus more on challenging samples that are otherwise hard to generalize, enabling the development of more precise integrated classification boundaries. Numerical evaluations on a range of benchmark problems are carried out, demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed semisupervised boosting algorithm for constructing ensemble fuzzy classifiers with high accuracy.

High-dimensional data classification is widely considered as a challenging task in machine learning due to the so-called “curse of dimensionality.” In this article, a novel multilayer jointly evolving and compressing fuzzy neural network (MECFNN) is proposed to learn highly compact multilevel latent representations from high-dimensional data. As a metalevel stacking ensemble system, each layer of MECFNN is based on a single jointly evolving and compressing neural fuzzy inference system (ECNFIS) that self-organizes a set of human-interpretable fuzzy rules from input data in a samplewise manner to perform approximate reasoning. ECNFISs associate a unique compressive projection matrix to each individual fuzzy rule to compress the consequent part into a tighter form, removing redundant information while boosting the diversity within the stacking ensemble. The compressive projection matrices of the cascading ECNFISs are self-updating to minimize the prediction errors via error backpropagation together with the consequent parameters, empowering MECFNN to learn more meaningful, discriminative representations from data at multiple levels of abstraction. An adaptive activation control scheme is further introduced in MECFNN to dynamically exclude less activated fuzzy rules, effectively reducing the computational complexity and fostering generalization. Numerical examples on popular high-dimensional classification problems demonstrate the efficacy of MECFNN.

As nonlinear fuzzy aggregation functions, Choquetlike integrals with fuzzy measures are widely used in decisionmaking, rule-based classification and information fusion. However, the fuzzy measures in the existing Choquet-like integrals are typically provided via human intervention, not driven by data, thereby significantly limiting the automation level of the resulting systems. As an effective data-driven tool, rough set theory has shown its great potential for attribute reduction while dealing with many real-world problems. Nonetheless, different reduction methods generally lead to different outcomes, whilst obtaining all reductions exhaustively is NP-hard. Therefore, it is an interesting challenge to induce fuzzy measures by rough sets, using corresponding Choquet-like integrals to establish a datadriven decision-making method which is applicable for practical problems. To tackle this challenge, Choquet-like integrals based on rough attribute fuzzy measures are introduced here. Also, a novel decision-making model exploiting the resulting Choquetlike integrals, for problems of fault diagnosis and classification. First, a form of data-driven fuzzy measure is introduced through the specificity measures of rough sets, which is named as rough attribute fuzzy measure. Second, for decision information systems, the concept of p-matching degree between two objects is defined over different domain attributes. Third, based on rough attribute fuzzy measures and p-matching degrees, a type of Choquet-like integral is established. Subsequently the new decision-making network model and its associated computational algorithm are provided. The proposed approach is evaluated over both numerical examples and public datasets to demonstrate its efficacy.

Object tracking in satellite videos poses a significant challenge for existing trackers due to the typical involvement of small objects, multiple similar disruptors, and occlusions. To improve the performance of remote sensing tracking, a novel motion-aware correlation filter (MACF) algorithm is developed in this study. The proposed approach provides the following improvements: 1) a motion estimation module based on the historical trajectory of the target is embedded into an enhanced spatial–temporal regularized correlation filter (CF)-based tracking framework, to suppress distractions caused by similar objects (SOs); and 2) a failure correction module is employed to deal with the occlusion problem, thereby further enhancing the tracking robustness. Extensive experiments are conducted on the publicly available VISO and SatSOT datasets, with the experimental results demonstrating that the proposed MACF algorithm achieves superior accuracy in comparison to state-of-the-art trackers. Particularly, the present approach has offered the first-place solution for the single object tracking task given in the ICPR 2022 challenge, on moving object detection and tracking in satellite videos (SatVideoDT).

Learning calligraphy writing skills in robots is regarded as a sophisticated task. Current robotic researchers have proposed many methods to implement various robotic calligraphy systems. However, several limitations of these methods, such as high computational costs and few diversities of generated results constrain the development of calligraphy robots. This article proposes a robotic writing framework based on a robotic hand–eye coordination method to solve these limitations. Inspired by the internal model control (IMC) system, a vision-motor network and a motor-vision network are built to simulate the direct and reverse models, respectively, in the IMC system of a robotic manipulator. The vision-motor network works as an action generator to convert image inputs to robotic actions, and the motor-vision network assists in the training of the vision-motor network. Thus, a pretraining of the motor-vision network is established by random writing movements of a robotic manipulator. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can successfully write strokes of Chinese characters by inputting target stroke images. Although the proposed method is applied to robotic calligraphy, the underpinning research is readily applicable to many other applications, such as human–robot motion mimicking.

Despite the rapid advance in multispectral (MS) pansharpening, existing convolutional neural network (CNN)-based methods require training on separate CNNs for different satellite datasets. However, such a single-task learning (STL) paradigm often leads to overlooking any underlying correlations between datasets. Aiming at this challenging problem, a multitask network (MTNet) is presented to accomplish joint MS pansharpening in a unified framework for images acquired by different satellites. Particularly, the pansharpening process of each satellite is treated as a specific task, while MTNet simultaneously learns from all data obtained from these satellites following the multitask learning (MTL) paradigm. MTNet shares the generic knowledge between datasets via task-agnostic subnetwork (TASNet), utilizing task-specific subnetworks (TSSNets) to facilitate the adaptation of such knowledge to a certain satellite. To tackle the limitation of the local connectivity property of the CNN, TASNet incorporates Transformer modules to derive global information. In addition, band-aware dynamic convolutions (BDConvs) are proposed that can accommodate various ground scenes and bands by adjusting their respective receptive field (RF) size. Systematic experimental results over different datasets demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms the existing state-of-the-art (SOTA) techniques.

Deep convolutional neural networks have delivered remarkable aptitude in performing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image speckle removal tasks. Such approaches are nevertheless constrained in balancing speckle removal and preservation of spatial information, particularly with respect to strong speckle noise. In this paper, a novel residual-in-residual dense generative adversarial network is proposed to effectively suppress SAR image speckle while retaining rich spatial information. A despeckling sub-network composed of residual-in-residual dense blocks with an encoder-decoder structure is devised to learn end-to-end mapping of noisy images onto noise-free images, where the combination of residual-in-residual structure and dense connection significantly enhances the feature representation capability. In addition, a discriminator sub-network with a fully convolutional structure is introduced, and the adversarial learning strategy is adopted to continuously refine the quality of despeckled results. Systematic experimental results on simulated and real SAR images demonstrate that the novel approach offers superior performance in both quantitative and visual evaluation as compared to state-of-the-art methods.

Despite the proven significance of hyperspectral images (HSIs) in performing various computer vision tasks, its potential is adversely affected by the low-resolution (LR) property in the spatial domain, resulting from multiple physical factors. Inspired by recent advancements in deep generative models, we propose an HSI Super-resolution (SR) approach with Conditional Diffusion Models (HSR-Diff) that merges a high-resolution (HR) multispectral image (MSI) with the corresponding LR-HSI. HSR-Diff generates an HR-HSI via repeated refinement, in which the HR-HSI is initialized with pure Gaussian noise and iteratively refined. At each iteration, the noise is removed with a Conditional Denoising Transformer (CDFormer) that is trained on denoising at different noise levels, conditioned on the hierarchical feature maps of HR-MSI and LR-HSI. In addition, a progressive learning strategy is employed to exploit the global information of full-resolution images. Systematic experiments have been conducted on four public datasets, demonstrating that HSR-Diff outperforms state-of-the-art methods.

Despite recent advances in video-guided robotic imitation learning, many methods still rely on human experts to provide sparse rewards that indicate whether robots have successfully completed tasks. The challenge of enabling robots to autonomously evaluate whether their actions can complete complex, multi-stage tasks remains unresolved. In this work, we propose an efficient few-shot robotic learning algorithm that centres around learning and evaluating from a third-person perspective to address the aforementioned challenge. We develop a novel Siamese neural network-based robotic action-state evaluation system, named “Behavior-Outcome Dual Assessment” (BODA), in our robotic imitation learning system, so as to replace artificial evaluations from human experts in multi-stage imitation learning processes and to improve learning efficiency. In this way, one video demonstration of a target task is divided into several stages. For each stage, we design two Siamese neural network-based evaluation modules in BODA: One module focuses on action changes, and the other handles working environment changes. The two modules work together to provide a comprehensive assessment of the robot's completion of each stage from the view of both the action and working environment changes. Then, BODA is integrated within a model-based reinforcement learning framework to enable the completion of our imitation learning cycle. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the evaluation processes of BODA can automatically and accurately evaluate task completion status without human intervention. In contrast to conventional methods, BODA is able to keep the accumulation of errors within acceptable limits through self-assessment in stages.

Abstract Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) offers a reliable approach for providing an interpretable approximate decision with a sparse rule base, when a new observation does not match any existing rules. As the mainstream application of a fuzzy rule base is to extract valuable approximate information from each individual rules, existing FRI methods typically work by postulating that the more rules used to implement the interpolation the better the reasoning outcomes. Yet, empirical results have shown that using a large number of rules in an FRI process may adversely lead to worsening the accuracy of the inference outcomes, not just degrading efficiency. The objective of this work is to set a firm theoretical foundation for the eventual establishment of a novel FRI approach. It achieves this goal by mapping the structural patterns within a given fuzzy rule base onto a mathematically isomorphic data space, such that the essential information embedded in the original rule base can be effectively captured, represented and analysed. The resulting mathematically mapped patterns enable the production of a theorem that determines the upper limit of the number of rules required to effectively and efficiently perform FRI. The experimental investigations reported herein demonstrate that the number of required rules to perform FRI obeys the theorem discovered in this work.

Deep learning reveals excellent potential for accomplishing change detection in SAR imagery. Yet, it suffers from the problem of requiring large amounts of labeled samples, whilst labeling SAR imagery for change detection requires experts to label individual images at the pixel level , which is extremely tedious and time-consuming. Also, sample imbalance continues to present a serious challenge for the existing change detection techniques. To tackle these problems, in this study, a Deep Collaborative semi-supervised learning Framework with Class-Rebalancing (DCF-CRe) is proposed for SAR imagery change detection, by exploiting Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and deep clustering. In particular, a Siamese Difference Fusion Network (SDFNet) is devised to implement change detection while effectively reducing the information loss due to the generation of difference images and highlighting features of the changed regions.In so doing, only a tiny batch of labeled samples is utilized to train SDFNet in order to obtain predicted change map and deep features. In addition, the Approximate Rank-Order Clustering (AROC) algorithm is employed to cluster the deep features, generating pseudo-labels for abundant unlabeled samples . DCF-CRe is then applied to select appropriate pseudo-labels and to add labeled samples to train SDFNet. Experimental results evaluated on six challenging datasets show that this proposed approach can achieve performance superior to state-of-the-art change detection methods for SAR imagery.

Abstract Image processing is a very broad field containing various areas, including image super-resolution (ISR) which re-represents a low-resolution image as a high-resolution one through a certain means of image transformation. The problem with most of the existing ISR methods is that they are devised for the condition in which sufficient training data is expected to be available. This article proposes a new approach for sparse data-based (rather than sufficient training data-based) ISR, by the use of an ANFIS (Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System) interpolation technique. Particularly, a set of given image training data is split into various subsets of sufficient and sparse training data subsets. Typical ANFIS training process is applied for those subsets involving sufficient data, and ANFIS interpolation is employed for the rest that contains sparse data only. Inadequate work is available in the current literature for the sparse data-based ISR. Consequently, the implementations of the proposed sparse data-based approach, for both training and testing processes, are compared with the state-of-the-art sufficient data-based ISR methods. This is of course very challenging, but the results of experimental evaluation demonstrate positively about the efficacy of the work presented herein.

Metalearning has been widely applied for implementing few-shot learning and fast model adaptation. Particularly, existing metalearning methods have been exploited to learn the control mechanism for gradient descent processes, in an effort to facilitate gradient-based learning in gaining high speed and generalization ability. This article presents a novel method that controls the gradient descent process of the model parameters in a neural network, by limiting the model parameters within a low-dimensional latent space. The main challenge for implementing this idea is that a decoder with many parameters may be required. To tackle this problem, the article provides an alternative design of the decoder with a structure that shares certain weights, thereby reducing the number of required parameters. In addition, this work combines ensemble learning with the proposed approach to improve the overall learning performance. Systematic experimental studies demonstrate that the proposed approach offers results superior to the state of the art in performing the Omniglot classification and miniImageNet classification tasks.

It is widely recognized that learning systems have to go deeper to exchange for more powerful representational learning capabilities in order to precisely approximate nonlinear complex problems. However, the best-known computational intelligence approaches with such characteristics, namely, deep neural networks, are often criticized for lacking transparency. In this article, a novel multilayer evolving fuzzy neural network (MEFNN) with a transparent system structure is proposed. The proposed MEFNN is a metalevel stacking ensemble learning system composed of multiple cascading evolving neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ENFISs), processing input data layer-by-layer to automatically learn multilevel nonlinear distributed representations from data. Each ENFIS is an evolving fuzzy system capable of learning from new data sample by sample to self-organize a set of human-interpretable IF– THEN fuzzy rules that facilitate approximate reasoning. Adopting ENFIS as its ensemble component, the multilayer system structure of the MEFNN is flexible and transparent, and its internal reasoning and decision-making mechanism can be explained and interpreted to/by humans. To facilitate information exchange between different layers and attain stronger representation learning capability, the MEFNN utilizes error backpropagation to self-update the consequent parameters of the IF–THEN rules of each ensemble component based on the approximation error propagated backward. To enhance the capability of the MEFNN to handle complex problems, a nonlinear activation function is introduced to modeling the consequent parts of the IF–THEN rules of ENFISs, thereby empowering both the representation and the reflection of nonlinearity in the resulting fuzzy outputs. Numerical examples on a wide variety of challenging (benchmark and real-world) classification and regression problems demonstrate the superior practical performance of the MEFNN, revealing the effectiveness and validity of the proposed approach.

Evolving intelligent systems (EISs), particularly, the zero-order ones have demonstrated strong performance on many real-world problems concerning data stream classification while offering high model transparency and interpretability thanks to their prototype-based nature. Zero-order EISs typically learn prototypes by clustering streaming data online in a “one pass” manner for greater computation efficiency. However, such identified prototypes often lack optimality, resulting in less precise classification boundaries, thereby hindering the potential classification performance of the systems. To address this issue, a commonly adopted strategy is to minimize the training error of the models on historical training data or alternatively to iteratively minimize the intracluster variance of the clusters obtained via online data partitioning. This recognizes the fact that the ultimate classification performance of zero-order EISs is driven by the positions of prototypes in the data space. Yet, simply minimizing the training error may potentially lead to overfitting while minimizing the intracluster variance does not necessarily ensure the optimized prototype-based models to attain improved classification outcomes. To achieve better classification performance while avoiding overfitting for zero-order EISs, this article presents a novel multiobjective optimization approach, enabling EISs to obtain optimal prototypes via involving these two disparate but complementary strategies simultaneously. Five decision-making schemes are introduced for selecting a suitable solution to deploy from the final nondominated set of the resulting optimized models. Systematic experimental studies are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization approach in improving the classification performance of zero-order EISs.

Dealing with uncertain rail disruptions effectively raises a significant challenge for computational intelligence research. This article studies the bus bridging problem under demand uncertainty, where the passenger demand is represented as parametric interval-valued fuzzy variables and their associated uncertainty distribution sets. A distributionally robust fuzzy optimization model is proposed to minimize the maximum travel time and to search for the optimal scheme for vehicle allocation, route selection, and frequency determination. To solve the proposed robust model, we discuss the computational issues concerning credibilistic constraints, turning the robust counterpart model into computationally tractable equivalent formulations. The proposed approach is verified, and the resulting method is validated with a report on uncertain parameters in a real-world disrupted event of Shanghai Rail Line 1. Experimental results show that the distributionally robust fuzzy optimization approach can provide a better uncertainty-immunized solution.

Fuzzy clustering decomposes data into clusters using partial memberships by exploring the cluster structure information, which demonstrates the comparable performance for knowledge exploitation under the circumstance of information incompleteness. In general, this scheme considers the memberships of objects to cluster centroids and applies to clusters with the spherical distribution. In addition, the noises and outliers may significantly influence the clustering process; a common mitigation measure is the application of separate noise processing algorithms, but this usually introduces multiple parameters, which are challenging to be determined for different data types. This article proposes a new fuzzy-rough intrigued harmonic discrepancy clustering (HDC) algorithm by noting that fuzzy-rough sets offer a higher degree of uncertainty modeling for both vagueness and imprecision present in real-valued datasets. The HDC is implemented by introducing a novel concept of harmonic discrepancy, which effectively indicates the dissimilarity between a data instance and foreign clusters with their distributions fully considered. The proposed HDC is thus featured by a powerful processing ability on complex data distribution leading to enhanced clustering performance, particularly on noisy datasets, without the use of explicit noise handling parameters. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed HDC, which generally outperforms the popular representative clustering algorithms on both synthetic and benchmark datasets, demonstrating the superiority of the proposed algorithm.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) strongly supports approximate inference when a new observation matches no rules, through selecting and subsequently interpolating appropriate rules close to the observation from the given (sparse) rule base. Traditional ways of implementing the critical rule selection process are typically based on the exploitation of Euclidean distances between the observation and rules. It is conceptually straightforward for implementation but applying this distance metric may systematically lead to inferior results because it fails to reflect the variations of the relevance or significance levels among different domain features. To address this important issue, a novel transformation-based FRI approach is presented, on the basis of utilizing the Mahalanobis distance metric. The new FRI method works by transforming a given sparse rule base into a coordinates system where the distance between instances of the same category becomes closer while that between different categories becomes further apart. In so doing, when an observation is present that matches no rules, the most relevant neighboring rules to implement the required interpolation are more likely to be selected. Following this, the scale and move factors within the classical transformation-based FRI procedure are also modified by Choquet integral. Systematic experimental investigation over a range of classification problems demonstrates that the proposed approach remarkably outperforms the existing state-of-the-art FRI methods in both accuracy and efficiency.

Fuzzy Rule Interpolation (FRI) provides a useful mechanism to derive reasonable approximate inference outcomes when presented with a sparse rule base. However, conventional FRI techniques are exploited to generate fuzzy conclusions for observations that have no matching rules in a static rule base. Any interpolated rules created during the interpolation process are abandoned once the interpolated results are obtained, despite they may contain valuable, and general or generalisable, information about the domain problem. This paper proposes an approach that helps improve the sparse rule base dynamically, through measuring and subsequently adding certain interpolated rules that are deemed of high value into the sparse rule base. In particular, the value of an interpolated rule is assessed via its similarities with those given in the sparse rule base, in an effort to determine whether it is to be incorporated in the existing rule base. Experimental results on benchmark datasets illustrate that by the use of a dynamically enriched rule base the popular transformation-based FRI algorithm is able to produce strengthened inference outcomes over those that it generates while using just the original static rule base.

This study proposes an efficient intelligent control structure for uncertain nonlinear systems. The controller is implemented by a sliding mode control framework including a modified broad leaning network (BLS) with a double-loop recurrent structure. In addition, the proposed BLS involves a self-organizing mechanism to increase or decrease the size of the BLS. The technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method is used to build the self-organizing mechanism. Moreover, two dynamic thresholds of TOPSIS are automatically determined according to the stability of the controller. One dynamic threshold is used to consider whether to retain or remove existing network neurons in the BLS; and the other is used to generate new neurons, so as to meet the requirements of different control states and save computing resources. To improve the network's dynamic characteristics, a double-loop recurrent structure is further introduced into the self-organizing BLS. The Lyapunov stability function is used to ensure the stability of the control system. The proposed controller is applied to the simulation control of a nonlinear chaotic system and a three-link robot manipulator. The experimental results show that the proposed controller can achieve better control performance against other network-based controllers. The source code of this work is placed at https://github.com/wzhuang-xmu/SODLRBLS

Oracle Bone Inscription (OBI) is an early hieroglyph in China, which is the most famous ancient writing system in the world. However, only a small number of OBI characters have been fully deciphered today. Chinese characters have different forms in different historical stages; therefore, it is very difficult to directly translate OBI characters to modern Chinese characters due to the long historic evolutionary process. In this paper, we propose a cascade generative adversarial networks (GAN) framework for deciphering OBI characters, named "Sundial-GAN'', which is a cascaded structure to simulate Chinese characters' evolutionary process from an OBI character to its potential modern Chinese character. We select four representative stages in the evolutionary process of OBI, each of which is implemented by an individual GAN structure based on the characteristics of each evolutionary stage. These structures are cascaded in sequence to accurately simulate the Chinese characters' evolutionary process. For each input OBI character, Sundial-GAN can successfully generate the input's different forms at the four historical stages. Extensive experiments and comparisons demonstrate that generated characters at each stage have high similarities with real existing characters; therefore, the proposed method can significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of OBI deciphering for archaeological researchers. Compared to direct image-to-image translation methods, our approach allows for a smoother translation process, a better grasp of details, and more effective avoiding random mappings in GANs.

Computer aided diagnosis (CAD) systems play an essential role in the early detection and diagnosis of developing disease for medical applications. In order to obtain the highly recognizable representation for the medical images, a self-adaptive discriminative autoencoder (SADAE) is proposed in this paper. The proposed SADAE system is implemented under a deep metric learning framework which consists of$K$local autoencoders, employed to learn the$K$subspaces that represent the diverse distribution of the underlying data, and a global autoencoder to restrict the spatial scale of the learned representation of images. Such community of autoencoders is aided by a self-adaptive metric learning method that extracts the discriminative features to recognize the different categories in the given images. The quality of the extracted features by SADAE is compared against that of those extracted by other state-of-the-art deep learning and metric learning methods on five popular medical image data sets. The experimental results demonstrate that the medical image recognition results gained by SADAE are much improved over those by the alternatives.

Discriminative correlation filter (DCF) has contributed tremendously to address the problem of object tracking benefitting from its high computational efficiency. However, it has suffered from performance degradation in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking. This article presents a novel semantic-aware real-time correlation tracking framework (SARCT) for UAV videos to enhance the performance of DCF trackers without incurring excessive computing cost. Specifically, SARCT first constructs an additional detection module to generate ROI proposals and to filter any response regarding the target irrelevant area. Then, a novel semantic segmentation module based on semantic template generation and semantic coefficient prediction is further introduced to capture semantic information, which can provide precise ROI mask, thereby effectively suppressing background interference in the ROI proposals. By sharing features and specific network layers for object detection and semantic segmentation, SARCT reduces parameter redundancy to attain sufficient speed for real-time applications. Systematic experiments are conducted on three typical aerial datasets in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed SARCT. The results demonstrate that SARCT is able to improve the accuracy of conventional DCF-based trackers significantly, outperforming state-of-the-art deep trackers.

Evolving fuzzy systems (EFSs) are widely known as a powerful tool for streaming data prediction. In this article, a novel zero-order EFS with a unique belief structure is proposed for data stream classification. Thanks to this new belief structure, the proposed model can handle the interclass overlaps in a natural way and better capture the underlying multimodel structure of data streams in the form of prototypes. Utilizing data-driven soft thresholds, the proposed model self-organizes a set of prototype-basedif–thenfuzzy belief rules from data streams for classification, and its learning outcomes are practically meaningful. With no requirement of prior knowledge in the problem domain, the proposed model is capable of self-determining the appropriate level of granularity for rule-based construction, while enabling users to specify their preferences on the degree of fineness of its knowledge base. Numerical examples demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed model on a wide range of stationary and nonstationary classification benchmark problems.

An adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) offers a popular and powerful fuzzy inference mechanism. As with many other advanced data-driven techniques, developing an effective ANFIS typically requires sufficient training data. However, in many real-world applications, it is not always straightforward to obtain a large amount of representative data that cover the entire problem space to accomplish the required training, seriously restricting the performance of a learned ANFIS. This article introduces a new ANFIS learning approach through an evolutionary process, which is able to generate an ANFIS with only a small amount of training data in a certain problem region, by interpolating well-trained ANFISs in the neighboring regions. Such a process works by first producing an initial population of candidate fuzzy rules in the region of data shortage, through interpolating a rule dictionary constructed from trained ANFISs in the neighborhood regions. The crossover and mutation operations over these candidate rules are then executed in an effort to attain candidates of improved performance. When this genetic learning process terminates, the chromosomes in the final population either collectively form or each individually represents a learned ANFIS, depending on whether a single fuzzy rule or a set of fuzzy rules representing an entire ANFIS is implemented with a chromosome within the evolving population. Comparative experimental evaluations on both synthetic and real-world datasets are carried out, demonstrating that in spite of data shortage, the proposed interpolation approach is able to produce ANFIS models that significantly outperform those trained using existing learning mechanisms.

When a fuzzy system is presented with an incomplete (or sparse) rule base, fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) offers a useful mechanism to infer conclusions for unmatched observations. However, most existing FRI methodologies are established for Mamdani inference models, but not for Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) ones. This article presents a novel approach for computing interpolated outcomes with TSK models, using only a small number of neighboring rules to an unmatched observation. Compared with existing methods, the new approach helps improve the computational efficiency of the overall interpolative reasoning process, while minimizing the adverse impact on accuracy induced by firing those rules of low similarities with the new observation. For problems that involve a rule base of a large size, where closest neighboring rules may be rather alike to one another, a rule-clustering-based method is introduced. It derives an interpolated conclusion by first clustering rules into different groups with a clustering algorithm and then, by utilizing only those rules that are each selected from one of a given, small number of closest rule clusters. Systematic experimental examinations are carried out to verify the efficacy of the introduced techniques, in comparison with state-of-the-art methods, over a range of benchmark regression problems, while employing different clustering algorithms (which also shows the flexibility in ways of implementing the novel approach).

Multispectral (MS) pan-sharpening aims at producing high-resolution (HR) MS images in both spatial and spectral domains, by merging single-band panchromatic (PAN) images and corresponding MS images with low spatial resolution. The intuitive way to accomplish such MS pan-sharpening tasks, or to reconstruct ideal HR-MS images, is to extract feature pairs from the given PAN and MS images and to fuse the results. Therefore, feature extraction and feature fusion are two key components for MS pan-sharpening. This article presents a novel MS pan-sharpening network (MPNet), including a heterogeneous pair of feature extraction pathways (FEPs) and a convolutional long short-term memory (ConvLSTM)-based hierarchical feature fusion module (HFFM). Specifically, we design a PAN FEP to extract 2-D feature maps via 2-D convolutions and dual attention, while an MS FEP is introduced in an effort to obtain 3-D representations of MS image by 3-D convolutions and triple attention. To merge the resulting hierarchical features, the ConvLSTM-based HFFM is developed, leveraging intralevel fusion, interlevel fusion, and information exchange within one single framework. Here, the interlevel fusion is implemented with the ConvLSTM to capture the dependencies among hierarchical features, reduce redundant information, and effectively integrate them via its recurrent architecture. The information exchange between different FEPs helps enhance the representations for subsequent processing. Systematic comparative experiments have been conducted on three publicly available datasets at both reduced resolution and full resolution, demonstrating that the proposed MPNet outperforms state-of-the-art methods in the literature.

Inertial measurement units (IMUs) have been widely used to provide accurate location and movement measurement solutions, along with the advances of modern manufacturing technologies. The scale factors of accelerometers and gyroscopes are linear when the range of the sensors are reasonably small, but the factor becomes nonlinear when the range gets much bigger. Based on this observation, this article presents a calibration method for low-cost IMU by effectively deriving the nonlinear scale factors of the sensors. Two motion patterns of the sensor on a rigid object are moved to collect data for calibration: One motion pattern is to upcast and rotate the rigid object, and another pattern is to place the rigid object on a stable base in different attitudes. The rotation motion produces centripetal and Coriolis force, which increases the measurement range of accelerometers. Four cost functions with different weight factors and two sets of data are utilized to optimize the IMU parameters. The weight factor comes from derived formula with input values which are the variance of the noise of the sampled data. The proposed approach was validated and evaluated on both synthetic and real-world data sets, and the experimental results demonstrated the superiority of the proposed approach in improving the accuracy of IMU for long-range use. In particular, the errors of acceleration and angular velocity led by our algorithm are significantly smaller than those resulted from the existing approaches using the same testing data sets, demonstrating a remarkable improvement of 64.12% and 47.90%, respectively.

Traditional fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) methods typically utilise Euclidean distances between an observation and the rules in a given sparse rule base to select a set of rules closest to the observation to perform interpolation. However, simply applying the Euclidean distance metric may frequently lead to inferior results, because it cannot take into consideration the relevance degree of different features. To address this important issue, this paper presents an initial framework for a novel FRI approach which works based on exploiting a transformed rule base. Mahalanobis matrix learned by metric learning methods is used herein to transform the given sparse rule base to a new coordinates system where the distance between instances of the same category is closer, and instances of different categories is distant from each other. When a new observation is present which matches no rules, the selection of the nearest rules to implement the required interpolation is carried out in the transformed coordinates system. Then, the scale and move factors within the classical transformation-based FRI procedure are modified by Choquet integral. Experimental results obtained by employing different metric learning methods and Choquet integral over seven classification problems demonstrate that the proposed approach remarkably outperforms existing FRI methods.

Recently proposed methods of TSK inference extension (TSK+) and K closest rules based TSK (KCR) are able to potentially perform fuzzy rule-based inference with a sparse rule base, for regression problems. However, in certain real-world applications, observations may be rather far away from any rules that may be fired in order to implement the required regression and hence, these state-of-the-art techniques may not work satisfactorily. To investigate an alternative to address such practical problems, this paper presents a novel fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) approach. It works based on integrating feature selection and feature aggregation to attain a rule-ranking list within the given sparse rule base. The process of acquiring an ordered rule list is accomplished offline, with an ordered rule base ready for use prior to the arrival of any observation online. It boosts the computational efficiency of closest rule selection during the FRI process. Initial experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is able to address the problems that TSK+ and KCR fail to do while having a similar time efficiency to them. Further, only two nearest rules to the observation are required to derive interpolated results, thereby significantly improving the automation level of the interpolative reasoning system.

Apart from the need for superior accuracy, healthcare applications of intelligent systems also demand the deployment of interpretable machine learning models which allow clinicians to interrogate and validate extracted medical knowledge. Fuzzy rule-based models are generally considered interpretable that are able to reflect the associations between medical conditions and associated symptoms, through the use of linguistic if-then statements. Systems built on top of fuzzy sets are of particular appealing to medical applications since they enable the tolerance of vague and imprecise concepts that are often embedded in medical entities such as symptom description and test results. They facilitate an approximate reasoning framework which mimics human reasoning and supports the linguistic delivery of medical expertise often expressed in statements such as 'weight low' or 'glucose level high' while describing symptoms. This paper proposes an approach by performing data-driven learning of accurate and interpretable fuzzy rule bases for clinical decision support. The approach starts with the generation of a crisp rule base through a decision tree learning mechanism, capable of capturing simple rule structures. The crisp rule base is then transformed into a fuzzy rule base, which forms the input to the framework of adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), thereby further optimising the parameters of both rule antecedents and consequents. Experimental studies on popular medical data benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed work is able to learn compact rule bases involving simple rule antecedents, with statistically better or comparable performance to those achieved by state-of-the-art fuzzy classifiers.

Abstract Dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation (D‐FRI) technique delivers a dynamic rule base through the utilisation of fuzzy rule interpolation to infer more accurate results for a given application problem. D‐FRI offered dynamic rule base is very useful in security areas where network conditions are always volatile and require the most updated rule base. A honeypot is a vital part of any security infrastructure for directly investigating attacks and attackers in real‐time to strengthen the overall security of the network. However, a honeypot as a concealed system can only function successfully while its identity is not revealed to any attackers. Attackers always attempt to uncover such honeypots for avoiding any trap and strengthening their attacks. Active fingerprinting attack is used to detect these honeypots by injecting purposefully designed traffic to a network. Such an attack can be prevented by controlling the traffic but this will make honeypot unusable system if its interaction with the outside world is limited. Alternatively, it is practically more useful if this fingerprinting attack is detected in real‐time to manage its immediate consequences and preventing the honeypot. This article offers an approach to building a cognizant honeypot for detecting active fingerprinting attacks through the utilisation of the established D‐FRI technique. It is based on the use of just a sparse rule base while remaining capable of detecting active fingerprinting attacks when the system does not find any matching rules. Also, it learns from current network conditions and offers a dynamic rule base to facilitate more accurate and efficient detection.

The antecedent and consequent parts of a first-order evolving intelligent system (EIS) determine the validity of the learning results and overall system performance. Nonetheless, the state-of-the-art techniques mostly stress on the novelty from the system identification point of view but pay less attention to the optimality of the learned parameters. Using the recently introduced autonomous learning multiple model (ALMMo) system as the implementation basis, this article introduces a particle swarm-based approach for the EIS optimization. The proposed approach is able to simultaneously optimize the antecedent and consequent parameters of ALMMo and effectively enhance the system performance by iteratively searching for optimal solutions in the problem spaces. In addition, the proposed optimization approach does not adversely influence the "one pass" learning ability of ALMMo. Once the optimization process is complete, ALMMo can continue to learn from new data to incorporate unseen data patterns recursively without full retraining. The experimental studies with a number of real-world benchmark problems validate the proposed concept and general principles. It is also verified that the proposed optimization approach can be applied to other types of EISs with similar operating mechanisms.

A major assumption for constructing an effective adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is that sufficient training data are available. However, in many real-world applications, this assumption may not hold, thereby requiring alternative approaches. In light of this observation, this article focuses on automated construction of ANFISs in an effort to enhance the potential of the Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy regression models for situations where only limited training data are available. In particular, the proposed approach works by interpolating a group of fuzzy rules in a certain given domain with the assistance of existing ANFISs in its neighboring domains. The construction process involves a number of computational mechanisms, including a rule dictionary which is created by extracting the rules from the existing ANFISs; a group of rules which are interpolated by exploiting the local linear embedding algorithm to build an intermediate ANFIS; and a fine-tuning method which refines the resulting intermediate ANFIS. The experimental evaluation on both synthetic and real-world datasets is reported, demonstrating that when facing the data shortage situations, the proposed approach helps significantly improve the performance of the original ANFIS modeling mechanism.

Reasonable risk models in hazardous material transportation are of practical significance, for safeguarding the lives and properties, protecting the natural environment, and facilitating sustainable development. The existing risk models can be classified into summation risk and maximum risk models, which result in overreliance on overall or local risk. To overcome these problems, in this article, we present two novel risk models considering different aggregation methods on local risks. The first model is supported by an ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator, which assigns the weights according to the position of the segment risk in the process of risk aggregation, and the second model is supported by state variable weight (SVW) vector, which adjusts the weights on segments according to the change of segment risk values. Generally speaking, an OWA risk model is used under the situation with complete weighting information, whereas an SVW risk model could be used under the situation with incomplete weighting information. Based on the analysis for variable weight mechanism, we show that both models could effectively balance the overall risk with the local risks assisted by weights variety. Numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the validity of the proposed risk models.

It has been a challenging task for a robotic arm to accurately reach and grasp objects, which has drawn much research attention. This article proposes a robotic hand-eye coordination system by simulating the human behavior pattern to achieve a fast and robust reaching ability. This is achieved by two neural-network-based controllers, including a rough reaching movement controller implemented by a pretrained radial basis function for rough reaching movements, and a correction movement controller built from a specifically designed brain emotional nesting network (BENN) for smooth correction movements. In particular, the proposed BENN is designed with high nonlinear mapping ability, with its adaptive laws derived from the Lyapunov stability theorem; from this, the robust tracking performance and accordingly the stability of the proposed control system are guaranteed by the utilization of the H∞control approach. The proposed BENN is validated and evaluated by a chaos synchronization simulation, and the overall control system by object grasping tasks through a physical robotic arm in a real-world environment. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed control system in reference to those with single neural networks.

Image super resolution is one of the most popular topics in the field of image processing. However, most of the existing super resolution algorithms are designed for the situation where sufficient training data is available. This paper proposes a new image super resolution approach that is able to handle the situation with sparse training data, using the recently developed ANFIS (Adaptive Network based Fuzzy Inference System) interpolation technique. In particular, the training image data set is divided into different subsets. For subsets with sufficient training data, the ANFIS models are trained using standard ANFIS learning procedure, while for those with insufficient data, the models are obtained through ANFIS interpolation. In the literature, little work exists for image super resolution on sparse data. Therefore, in the experimental evaluations of this paper, the proposed approach is compared with existing super resolution methods with full data, demonstrating that this work is able to produce highly promising results.

Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) Systems form one type of conventional fuzzy rule inference system, providing an effective approach for performing prediction and regression tasks. In a real-world application, the inputs are usually varying against time, thereby requiring dynamically maintaining the rule base in order to maintain and possibly improve the efficacy of such a system. Situations may become more complicated if the training data does not sufficiently cover the problem space. Fuzzy Rule Interpolation (FRI) systems may help, whilst most of which follow a static approach, tending to process a large amount of interpolated rules which are generally discarded once the results are derived. Yet, the interpolated rules may contain potentially useful information. This paper presents a dynamic TSK system by exploiting such rules to support subsequent inference and promote rule bases. The obtained intermediate rules are directly added into the sparse rule base until it reaches a certain size. Afterwards, a clustering algorithm is employed to categorise rules into different groups so that an interpolated conclusion can be computed using the closest rules selected from a small number of closest rule clusters. Through systematic experimental comparisons with the conventional static approach, it is demonstrated that the proposed dynamic TSK system not only improves the overall reasoning accuracy but also reduces the interpolation overheads by avoiding the need for interpolations of experienced similar observations.

Fuzzy rule-based systems are widely applied for real-world decision support, such as policy formation, public health analysis, medical diagnosis , and risk assessment. However, they face significant challenges when the application problem at hand suffers from the “curse of dimensionality” or “sparse knowledge base” . Combination of hierarchical fuzzy rule models and fuzzy rule interpolation offers a potentially efficient and effective approach to dealing with both of these issues simultaneously. In particular, backward fuzzy rule interpolation (B-FRI) facilitates approximate reasoning to be performed given a sparse rule base where rules do not fully cover all observations or the observations are not complete, missing antecedent values in certain available rules. This paper presents a hierarchical bidirectional fuzzy reasoning mechanism by integrating hierarchical rule structures and forward/backward rule interpolation. A computational method is proposed, building on the resulting hierarchical bidirectional fuzzy interpolation to maintain consistency in sparse fuzzy rule bases. The proposed techniques are utilised to address a range of decision support problems, successfully demonstrating their efficacy.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) facilitates approximate reasoning in fuzzy rule-based systems only with sparse knowledge available, remedying the limitation of conventional compositional rule of inference working with a dense rule base. Most of the existing FRI work assumes equal significance of the conditional attributes in the rules while performing interpolation. Recently, interesting techniques have been reported for achieving weighted interpolative reasoning. However, they are either particularly tailored to perform classification problems only or employ attribute weights that are obtained using additional information (rather than just the given rules), without integrating them with the associated FRI procedure. This paper presents a weighted rule interpolation scheme for performing prediction tasks by the use of fuzzy sparse knowledge only. The weights of rule conditional attributes are learned from a given rule base to discriminate the relative significance of each individual attribute and are integrated throughout the internal mechanism of the FRI process. This scheme is demonstrated using the popular scale and move transformation-based FRI for resolving prediction problems, systematically evaluated on 12 benchmark prediction tasks. The performance is compared with the relevant state-of-the-art FRI techniques, showing the efficacy of the proposed approach.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) is of particular significance for reasoning in the presence of insufficient knowledge or sparse rule bases. As one of the most popular FRI methods, transformation-based fuzzy rule interpolation (TFRI) works by constructing an intermediate fuzzy rule, followed by running scale and move transformations. The process of intermediate rule construction selects a user-defined number of rules closest to an observation that does not match any existing rule, using a distance metric. It relies upon heuristically computed weights to assess the contribution of individual selected rules. This process requires a move operation in an effort to force the intermediate rule to overlap with an unmatched observation, regardless of what rules are selected and how much contribution they may each make. It is, therefore, desirable to avoid this problem and also to improve the automation of rule interpolation without resorting to the user's intervention for fixing the number of closest rules. This article proposes such a novel approach to selecting a subset of rules from the sparse rule base with an embedded rule weighting scheme for the automatic assembling of the intermediate rule. Systematic comparative experimental results are provided on a range of benchmark datasets to demonstrate statistically significant improvement in the performance achieved by the proposed approach over that obtainable using conventional TFRI.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) enables sparse fuzzy rule-based systems to derive an interpolated conclusion using neighboring rules, when presented with an observation that matches none of the given rules. The efficacy of FRI has been further empowered by the recent development of weighted FRI techniques, particularly the one that introduces attribute weights of rule antecedents from the given rule base, removing the conventional assumption of antecedent attributes having equal weighting or significance. However, such work was carried out within the specific transformation-based FRI mechanism. This short paper reports the results of generalizing it through enhancing two alternative representative FRI methods. The resultant weighted FRI algorithms facilitate the individual attribute weights to be integrated throughout the corresponding procedures of the conventional unweighted methods. With systematical comparative evaluations over benchmark classification problems, it is empirically demonstrated that these algorithms work effectively and efficiently using just two nearest neighboring rules.

Sentiment analysis mines people's opinions and attitudes regarding a certain issue from source materials. Recently, it has drawn significant attention in a number of application areas. The sentiment analysis of healthcare in general and that of users' drug experience in particular could shed significant light on how to improve public health and make the right decisions. However, one of the major challenges in sentiment classification lies in the very large number of extracted features. Fuzzy-rough feature selection provides a means by which discrete or real-valued noisy data can be effectively reduced without human intervention. This paper proposes an implementation for automatic sentiment classification of drug reviews employing fuzzy rough feature selection. Experimental results demonstrate that the employment of fuzzy-rough feature selection can indeed significantly reduce the complexity of feature space and the classification run-time overheads while maintaining classification accuracy.

Dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation (D-FRI) enhances the accuracy of sparse rule-based fuzzy reasoning via efficiently exploiting fuzzy rule interpolation to produce dynamic rules. Owing to its adaptive nature in delivering a dynamic rule base, it is particularly useful for those systems which experience frequent changes. Network security is one such area where frequent changes are quite likely due to changing network conditions and traffic. Thus, D-FRI has the potential to offer an optimised and adaptive approach for improving network security. The popular Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall is capable of monitoring and alerting a range of common threats, by baselining the traffic of a network and analysing the statistics of dropped packets. An ASA process yields a large volume of statistical information relating to certain security events. Yet, threat detection is a rudimentary function since additional intelligence is required to automate the extraction of meaningful information for alerting the users. This could be achieved using expensive automated tools offered by a third party, but doing so may unnecessarily expose an organisation to other security threats. This paper takes a different approach, presenting a DFRI-CiscoFirewall in support of automated threat detection for Cisco ASA Firewall. Through utilising threat detection statistics, the approach can customise the detection process according to organisational requirements. It performs the relative analysis of prioritised security events and is able to predict comprehensive security situations while no matching rules are available. In particular, the approach supports the creation of a dynamic rule base, derived from changing network conditions and traffic density. Its efficacy is demonstrated by experimental evaluations.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) technique has been proposed to infer conclusions for unmatched instances when a fuzzy rule-based system is presented with a sparse rule base. Most existing FRI methodologies are not developed for Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) inference models. TSK inference extension (TSK+) is one of the methodologies proposed for TSK models with sparse rule bases. It works by replacing matching degrees with similarity measures across all the given rules, instead of just the matched ones, to generate the final conclusion. However, those rules with low similarities bring bias to the final result, which is mainly determined by the closest rules. To significantly strengthen the efficacy of this, a novel framework is presented here through the use of just a small number of closest rules to derive the final outcome. Compared with TSK+, the proposed method reduces the computational overheads of the inference process while avoiding the adverse impact caused by the rules of low similarities with the new observation. More importantly, to deal with large sized sparse rule bases, where neighbourhood rules may be similar with each other, a rule-clustering approach is proposed. That is, a clustering algorithm (say, fuzzy c-means) is first employed to cluster rules into different groups and then, the final interpolated conclusion is computed by the use of the closest rules selected from a small number of closest rule clusters. This approach helps further decrease the time complexity. The efficacy of these two modified methods is demonstrated via systematic experimental comparisons against the performance of the original TSK+.

CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is one of the most common diseases threatening the human lives globally, requiring effective and early risk analysis for which learning classifiers supported with automated feature selection offer a potential robust solution. MOTIVATION: Computer aided risk analysis of breast cancer typically works with a set of extracted mammographic features which may contain significant redundancy and noise, thereby requiring technical developments to improve runtime performance in both computational efficiency and classification accuracy. HYPOTHESIS: Use of advanced feature selection methods based on multiple diagnosis criteria may lead to improved results for mammographic risk analysis. METHODS: An approach for multi-criterion based mammographic risk analysis is proposed, by adapting the recently developed multi-label fuzzy-rough feature selection mechanism. RESULTS: A system for multi-criterion mammographic risk analysis is implemented with the aid of multi-label fuzzy-rough feature selection and its performance is positively verified experimentally, in comparison with representative popular mechanisms. CONCLUSIONS: The novel approach for mammographic risk analysis based on multiple criteria helps improve classification accuracy using selected informative features, without suffering from the redundancy caused by such complex criteria, with the implemented system demonstrating practical efficacy.

Recently, hyperspectral image (HSI) classification approaches based on deep learning (DL) models have been proposed and shown promising performance. However, because of very limited available training samples and massive model parameters, DL methods may suffer from overfitting. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end 3-D lightweight convolutional neural network (CNN) (abbreviated as 3-D-LWNet) for limited samples-based HSI classification. Compared with conventional 3-D-CNN models, the proposed 3-D-LWNet has a deeper network structure, less parameters, and lower computation cost, resulting in better classification performance. To further alleviate the small sample problem, we also propose two transfer learning strategies: 1) cross-sensor strategy, in which we pretrain a 3-D model in the source HSI data sets containing a greater number of labeled samples and then transfer it to the target HSI data sets and 2) cross-modal strategy, in which we pretrain a 3-D model in the 2-D RGB image data sets containing a large number of samples and then transfer it to the target HSI data sets. In contrast to previous approaches, we do not impose restrictions over the source data sets, in which they do not have to be collected by the same sensors as the target data sets. Experiments on three public HSI data sets captured by different sensors demonstrate that our model achieves competitive performance for HSI classification compared to several state-of-the-art methods.

Network intrusion detection systems (IDSs) dynamically monitor communication events on a network, and decide whether any event is symptomatic of an attack or constitutes a legitimate use of the system. They have become an indispensable component of security infrastructure, e.g., to detect threats before widespread damage takes place. A variety of approaches have been proposed to design IDSs, including fuzzy rule-based techniques that offer advantages such as tolerance of noisy and imprecise data. In particular, fuzzy rules can be highly interpretable and trackable if the underlying fuzzy sets are predefined, directly reflecting domain expertise. This paper proposes such an approach to generate a set of weighted fuzzy rules for building effective IDSs, where the rule weights are optimised by Particle Swarm Optimisation without affecting the underlying predefined fuzzy sets. Experiments are performed on benchmark IDS datasets with comparison to alternative systems built with popular machine learning methods.

This paper presents a novel fuzzy rule-based interpolative reasoning system for mammographic mass shape classification that is interpretable to medical professionals. In particular, a feature ranking-guided fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) method is embedded in the proposed system to make inference possible given a sparse rule base, which may occur in dealing with insufficient mammographic image data (and indeed in coping with many other computer-aided medical diagnostic problems). The rule base for inference is learned from a set of labelled morphological features which are extracted from mass shapes. A classical FRI mechanism is integrated with a procedure for feature selection to score the individual rule antecedents in the inducted sparse rule base for more accurate interpolative reasoning. The work is evaluated on a real-world mammographic image data base with promising results, demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed fuzzy rule-based interpolative classification system.

This paper proposes a novel approach for building transparent knowledge-based systems by generating accurate and interpretable fuzzy rules. The learning mechanism reported here induces fuzzy rules via making use of only predefined fuzzy labels that reflect prescribed notations and domain expertise, thereby ensuring transparency in the knowledge model adopted for problem solving. It works by mapping every coarsely learned crisp production rule in the knowledge base onto a set of potentially useful fuzzy rules, which serves as an initial step towards an intuitive technique for similarity-based rule generalisation. This is followed by a procedure that locally selects a compact subset of the emerging fuzzy rules, so that the resulting subset collectively generalises the underlying original crisp rule. The outcome of this local procedure forms the input to a global genetic search process, which seeks for a trade-off between accuracy and complexity of the eventually induced fuzzy rule base while maintaining transparency. Systematic experimental results are provided to demonstrate that the induced fuzzy knowledge base is of high performance and interpretability.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) makes inference possible when dealing with a sparse and imprecise rule base. However, the rule antecedents are commonly assumed to be of equal significance in most FRI approaches in the implementation of interpolation. This may lead to a poor performance of interpolative reasoning due to inaccurate or incorrect interpolated results. In order to improve the accuracy by minimising the disadvantage of the equal significance assumption, this paper presents a novel inference system where an information gain (IG)-guided fuzzy rule interpolation method is embedded. In particular, the rule antecedents in FRI are weighted using IG to evaluate the relative importance given the consequent for decision making. The computation of antecedent weights is enabled by introducing an innovative reverse engineering process that artificially converts fuzzy rules into training samples. The antecedent weighting scheme is integrated with scale and move transformation-based interpolation (though other FRI techniques may be improved in the same manner). An illustrative example is used to demonstrate the execution of the proposed approach, while systematic comparative experimental studies are reported to demonstrate the potential of the proposed work.

Identification of hidden relationships between domain attributes from different data sources is of great practical significance and forms an emerging field in data mining. However, currently there seldom exist any systematic methods that can effectively handle this problem, especially when dealing with imprecisely described associations. In this paper, a novel data-driven approach for inter-variable correlation prediction is proposed by exploiting the concept of connected-triples. The work is implemented with the use of fuzzy logic. Through the exploitation of link strength measurements and fuzzy inference, the job of detecting similar or related variables can be accomplished via examining link relation patterns within and across different data sources. Empirical evaluation results are discussed, revealing the potential of the proposed work in predicting interesting attribute relations, while involving simple computation mechanisms.

The k nearest-neighbour ( k NN) algorithm has enjoyed much attention since its inception as an intuitive and effective classification method. Many further developments of k NN have been reported such as those integrated with fuzzy sets, rough sets, and evolutionary computation. In particular, the fuzzy and rough modifications of k NN have shown significant enhancement in performance. This paper presents another significant improvement, leading to a multi-functional nearest-neighbour (MFNN) approach which is conceptually simple to understand. It employs an aggregation of fuzzy similarity relations and class memberships in playing the critical role of decision qualifier to perform the task of classification. The new method offers important adaptivity in dealing with different classification problems by nearest-neighbour classifiers, due to the large and variable choice of available aggregation methods and similarity metrics. This flexibility allows the proposed approach to be implemented in a variety of forms. Both theoretical analysis and empirical evaluation demonstrate that conventional k NN and fuzzy nearest neighbour, as well as two recently developed fuzzy-rough nearest-neighbour algorithms can be considered as special cases of MFNN. Experimental results also confirm that the proposed approach works effectively and generally outperforms many state-of-the-art techniques.

Social network modelling offers an important computational mechanism for analysis of complex system behaviour. Social networks can be established by linking individuals based on observations of certain activities like physical proximity, by exploiting spatiotemporal data streams that have been acquired. A potentially powerful approach to building such networks is to computationally imitate the real-world foraging process of great tits, where the data streams required consist of the times and locations each tit of a certain population has appeared at. The method works by clustering individuals within the population into groups representing different gathering events with respect to the time and location. It links up the individuals appearing in the same events and subsequently, filters out those links that are set up coincidentally. However, the original filtering technique faces significant challenges when considering issues such as time and space complexity and non-unique parameters that are required for removing coincidental links. This paper presents an improved approach by the use of the popular fuzzy c-means method to reinforce the clustering of coincidental links in an emerging social network derived from spatiotemporal data. In particular, all links are organised into two groups: strong links or weak links, prior to the running of the filtering process. The efficacy of the modified version is demonstrated via systematic experimental comparisons against the performance of the original method.

Using fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) interpolative reasoning can be effectively performed with a sparse rule base where a given system observation does not match any fuzzy rules. While offering a potentially powerful inference mechanism, in the current literature, typical representation of fuzzy rules in FRI assumes that all attributes in the rules are of equal significance in deriving the consequents. This is a strong assumption in practical applications, thereby, often leading to less accurate interpolated results. To address this challenging problem, this paper employs feature selection (FS) techniques to adjudge the relative significance of individual attributes and therefore, to differentiate the contributions of the rule antecedents and their impact upon FRI. This is feasible because FS provides a readily adaptable mechanism for evaluating and ranking attributes, being capable of selecting more informative features. Without requiring any acquisition of real observations, based on the originally given sparse rule base, the individual scores are computed using a set of training samples that are artificially created from the rule base through an innovative reverse engineering procedure. The attribute scores are integrated within the popular scale and move transformation-based FRI algorithm (while other FRI approaches may be similarly extended following the same idea), forming a novel method for attribute ranking-supported fuzzy interpolative reasoning. The efficacy and robustness of the proposed approach is verified through systematic experimental examinations in comparison with the original FRI technique over a range of benchmark classification problems while utilizing different FS methods. A specific and important outcome that is supported by attribute ranking, only two (i.e., the least number of) nearest adjacent rules are required to perform accurate interpolative reasoning, avoiding the need of searching for and computing with multiple rules beyond the immediate neighborhood of a given observation.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) offers an effective approach for making inference possible in sparse rule-based systems (and also for reducing the complexity of fuzzy models). However, requirements of fuzzy systems may change over time and hence, the use of a static rule base may affect the accuracy of FRI applications. Fortunately, an FRI system in action will produce interpolated rules in abundance during the interpolative reasoning process. While such interpolated results are discarded in existing FRI systems, they can be utilized to facilitate the development of a dynamic rule base in supporting subsequent inference. This is because the otherwise relinquished interpolated rules may contain possibly valuable information, covering regions that were uncovered by the original sparse rule base. This paper presents a dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation (D-FRI) approach by exploiting such interpolated rules in order to improve the overall system's coverage and efficacy. The resulting D-FRI system is able to select, combine, and generalize informative, frequently used interpolated rules for merging with the existing rule base while performing interpolative reasoning. Systematic experimental investigations demonstrate that D-FRI outperforms conventional FRI techniques, with increased accuracy and robustness. Furthermore, D-FRI is herein applied for network security analysis, in devising a dynamic intrusion detection system (IDS) through integration with the Snort software, one of the most popular open source IDSs. This integration, denoted as D-FRI-Snort hereafter, delivers an extra amount of intelligence to predict the level of potential threats. Experimental results show that with the inclusion of a dynamic rule base, by generalising newly interpolated rules based on the current network traffic conditions, D-FRI-Snort helps reduce both false positives and false negatives in intrusion detection.

Classifier ensembles form an important approach to improving classification performance. As such, there have been different proposals made in the literature that provide a range of means to construct and aggregate classifier ensembles. However, the resulting systems may contain unreliable members with false or biased judgements in the ensemble. The removal of unreliable members is necessary to optimise the overall performance of such systems. Smaller ensembles involving reduced ensemble members also helps relax the requirement of computational memory, thereby strengthening the system's run-time efficiency. To differentiate the potential contributions of different ensemble members while reducing the adverse impact of any unreliable judgement upon the system, a nearest neighbour-based reliability measure is incorporated into the process of classifier ensemble selection. In particular, reliabilities of selected ensemble members are perceived as a stress function, from which argument-dependent weights are heuristically generated for final aggregated decision. Experimental investigations are carried out, demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed approach, where fuzzy classifiers are utilised as base members of the emerging ensemble.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) provides an alternative means to make inference with a sparse rule base, rather than directly resulting in failed reasoning when no rules can be fired for an input observation. However, existing approaches to FRI typically assume that rule antecedents are of equal significance in the implementation of interpolation, thereby often leading to less accurate interpolated results. Having taken notice of feature selection (FS) techniques being capable of selecting (subsets of) informative features, providing a mechanism of evaluating and ranking features, this work employs FS to score the individual rule antecedents in a given rule base. In particular, the computation of individual scores is enabled by the introduction of an innovative reverse engineering technique that artificially creates a set of training samples from a given sparse rule base. The antecedent scores are integrated within the scale and move transformation-based FRI algorithm (though other FRI approaches may employ the same idea), forming a novel feature ranking-guided FRI method. The work is systematically examined, by utilising six different FS techniques and comparing over eight benchmark classification problems, demonstrating improved classification performance.

Dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation (D-FRI) consists of functionalities of fuzzy rule interpolation and dynamically refinement of the fuzzy rule base. It can be integrated with any fuzzy intelligent system to extend the system's capabilities in addition to its normal fuzzy reasoning. Systems security is one of the areas that require dynamic monitoring due to the nature of possible threats; static rule-based systems cannot cover all reoriented security threats accurately in the long run. D-FRI provides a possible solution to such problems, potentially making various security tools (e.g., those for firewall, intrusion detection and traffic analysis) more effective. As a particular application, this paper exploits D-FRI to dynamically support Microsoft Windows Firewall, resulting in a robust system named D-FRI-WinFirewall. Given the general utility of Windows Firewall, the impact of this work is far-reaching. The work reported here focusses on the monitoring and prevention of denial of service (DoS) attacks, which is not possible by utilising the standard Windows Firewall alone. In particular, two sub-systems are designed, implemented and tested within D-FRI-WinFirewall, with an effort to detect and prevent two serious types of DoS attack: ICMP DoS attack and UDP DoS attack, leading the Windows Firewall to outperform popular and expensive firewalls, which are yet unable to handle DoS attacks.

The interaction between features, or attributes, of a dataset forms a major topic in machine learning and data mining. In particular, a wide range of methods have been established for feature selection, ranking, and grouping. Amongst these, fuzzy rough set based feature selection (FRFS) has been shown to be highly effective at reducing dimensionality for real-valued datasets while retaining attribute semantics. In fuzzy rough sets, the concept of crisp equivalence classes is extended by fuzzy similarity relations, and real-valued similarity measures can be captured between data instances in terms of their attribute values. Therefore, it is desirable to study the aggregation of fuzzy similarity relations to reflect the interactions between attributes. This paper presents an approach that employs OWA aggregation of fuzzy similarity relations to better perform FRFS. A high degree of modelling flexibility is provided by choosing the stress function in OWA. Experimental studies demonstrate that through using different stress functions, different features may be selected; and that given an appropriate stress function, the quality of selected features can improve over that achievable by the state-of-the-art FRFS, in performing classification tasks.

This paper proposes a new approach for single frame image super resolution using multiple ANFIS (Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System) mappings. It presents an implemented learning system that captures the relationship between a low resolution (LR) image patch space and a high resolution (HR) one given an external image database. In particular, a collected large number of LR and HR image patch pairs are divided into different groups with a clustering method. For each clustered group of the training samples, an ANFIS mapping is learned for super resolution (SR). The non-local means filter is subsequently employed to suppress the displeasing artefacts of the resulting reconstructed HR image. The proposed approach is evaluated on a range of natural images and compared with a number of existing state-of-the-art SR algorithms, demonstrating its effectiveness.

Journal impact indicators are widely accepted as possible measurements of academic journal quality. However, much debate has recently surrounded their use, and alternative journal impact evaluation techniques are desirable. Aggregation of multiple indicators offers a promising method to produce a more robust ranking result, avoiding the possible bias caused by the use of a single impact indicator. In this paper, fuzzy aggregation and fuzzy clustering, especially the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators are exploited to aggregate the quality scores of academic journals that are obtained from different impact indicators. Also, a novel method for linguistic term-based fuzzy cluster grouping is proposed to rank academic journals. The paper allows for the construction of distinctive fuzzy clusters of academic journals on the basis of their performance with respect to different journal impact indicators, which may be subsequently combined via the use of the OWA operators. Journals are ranked in relation to their memberships in the resulting combined fuzzy clusters. In particular, the nearest-neighbor guided aggregation operators are adopted to characterize the reliability of the indicators, and the fuzzy clustering mechanism is utilized to enhance the interpretability of the underlying ranking procedure. The ranking results of academic journals from six subjects are systematically compared with the outlet ranking used by the Excellence in Research for Australia, demonstrating the significant potential of the proposed approach.

As a substantial extension to fuzzy rule interpolation that works based on two neighboring rules flanking an observation, adaptive fuzzy rule interpolation is able to restore system consistency when contradictory results are reached during interpolation. The approach first identifies the exhaustive sets of candidates, with each candidate consisting of a set of interpolation procedures which may jointly be responsible for the system inconsistency. Then, individual candidates are modified such that all contradictions are removed, and thus, interpolation consistency is restored. It has been developed on the assumption that contradictions may only be resulted from the underlying interpolation mechanism, and that all the identified candidates are not distinguishable in terms of their likelihood to be the real culprit. However, this assumption may not hold for real-world situations. This paper, therefore, further develops the adaptive method by taking into account observations, rules, and interpolation procedures, all as diagnosable and modifiable system components. In addition, given the common practice in fuzzy systems that observations and rules are often associated with certainty degrees, the identified candidates are ranked by examining the certainty degrees of its components and their derivatives. From this, the candidate modification is carried out based on such ranking. This study significantly improves the efficacy of the existing adaptive system by exploiting more information during both the diagnosis and modification processes.

The prediction of student academic performance is important to both educational institutions and students themselves for a variety of reasons. However, previous techniques often consider only past numeric data for prediction, whereas others overuse different types of indicative attribute, leading to the creation of complicated predicting methods whose results are difficult to interpret. This paper proposes a novel approach to predicting student final period grade, using attributes related to student past academic records and attributes of normal study behaviour, which are readily obtainable and easily interpretable. The proposed approach works by employing fuzzy clustering and multi-variable regression within an integrated framework, which also includes an offset value mechanism to support the use of attributes that are related to normal student study behaviour. Comparative experimental investigations are carried out, demonstrating the potential of the proposed work in producing more accurate results.

Application of fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) has been escalating for making intelligent systems viable in many areas. However, requirements of such systems may change over time and the supporting static rule base may not be able to provide accurate interpolation results in the long run. Dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation (D-FRI) is one of the potential solutions for this problem, a such has been developed in the last few years to fulfil the requirements of dynamic and pertinent rule bases for intelligent systems. Nevertheless, applications of the proposed D-FRI approach need further investigation. One potential application is for network security that is one of the biggest concerns of any organisation irrespective of their size and nature of business. Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are considered as one of the most popular and effective security tools for generating alerts to systems or network administrators to inform possible or existing threats. A standard IDS may not be very effective or even unsuitable for an organisational or individual's requirements. This paper presents an application of D-FRI for building an effective IDS. In this implementation, the most popular open source IDS, Snort is used and the resultant intelligent IDS is named D-FRI-Snort. Experimental analysis shows that the integration of D-FRI with the IDS Snort provides an additional level of intelligence to predict the level/sensitivity of possible threats. It also provides a dynamic rule base by promoting new rules based on the current network traffic conditions, which helps Snort to reduce both false positives and false negatives.

Fuzzy rule interpolation forms an important approach for performing inference with systems comprising sparse rule bases. Even when a given observation has no overlap with the antecedent values of any existing rules, fuzzy rule interpolation may still derive a useful conclusion. Unfortunately, very little of the existing work on fuzzy rule interpolation can conjunctively handle more than one form of uncertainty in the rules or observations. In particular, the difficulty in defining the required precise-valued membership functions for the fuzzy sets that are used in conventional fuzzy rule interpolation techniques significantly restricts their application. In this paper, a novel rough-fuzzy approach is proposed in an attempt to address such difficulties. The proposed approach allows the representation, handling and utilisation of different levels of uncertainty in knowledge. This allows transformation-based fuzzy rule interpolation techniques to model and harness additional uncertain information in order to implement an effective fuzzy interpolative reasoning system. Final conclusions are derived by performing rough-fuzzy interpolation over this representation. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by a practical application to the prediction of diarrhoeal disease rates in remote villages. It is further evaluated against a range of other benchmark case studies. The experimental results confirm the efficacy of the proposed work.

The task of handwritten Chinese character recognition is one of the most challenging areas of human handwriting classification. The main reason for this is related to the writing system itself which encompasses thousands of characters, coupled with high levels of diversity in personal writing styles and attributes. Much of the existing work for both online and off-line handwritten Chinese character recognition has focused on methods which employ feature extraction and segmentation steps. The preprocessed data from these steps form the basis for the subsequent classification and recognition phases. This paper proposes an approach for handwritten Chinese character recognition and classification using only an image alignment technique and does not require the aforementioned steps. Rather than extracting features from the image, which often means building models from very large training data, the proposed method instead uses the mean image transformations as a basis for model building. The use of an image-only model means that no subjective tuning of the feature extraction is required. In addition by employing a fuzzy-entropy-based metric, the work also entails improved ability to model different types of uncertainty. The classifier is a simple distance-based nearest neighbour classification system based on template matching. The approach is applied to a publicly available real-world database of handwritten Chinese characters and demonstrates that it can achieve high classification accuracy and is robust in the presence of noise.

Fuzzy rule interpolation is an important technique for performing inference with sparse rule bases. Even when a given observation has no overlap with the antecedent values of any existing rules, fuzzy rule interpolation may still derive a conclusion. In particular, the recently proposed rough-fuzzy rule interpolation offers greater flexibility in handling different levels of uncertainty that may be present in sparse rule bases and observations. Nevertheless, in practical applications with inter-connected subsets of rules, situations may arise where a crucial antecedent of observation is absent, either due to human error or difficulty in obtaining data, while the associated conclusion may be derived according to alternative rules or even observed directly. If such missing antecedents were involved in the subsequent interpolation process, the final conclusion would not be deduced using a forward rule interpolation technique alone. However, missing antecedents may be related to certain intermediate conclusions and therefore, may be interpolated us- ing the known antecedents and these conclusions. Following this idea, a novel backward rough-fuzzy rule interpolation approach is proposed in this paper, allowing missing observations which are indirectly related to the final conclusion to be interpolated from the known antecedents and intermediate conclusions. As illustrated experimentally, the resulting backward rough-fuzzy rule interpolation system is able to deal with uncertainty, in both data and knowledge, with more flexibility.

The use of fuzzy quantifiers to modify the fuzzy linguistic terms in fuzzy models helps build fuzzy systems in a more natural way, by capturing finer pieces of information embedded in the training data. This paper presents a practical approach for the acquisition of fuzzy production rules with quantifiers, based on a class-dependent simultaneous rule learning strategy where each class is associated with a subset of descriptive rules. It is implemented by particle swam optimisation. The performance of the learned fuzzy rules with and without fuzzy quantifiers is evaluated on various UCI benchmark data sets, in comparison to popular alternative rule based learning classifiers. Experimental results demonstrate that rule bases generated by the proposed approach indeed boost classification performance as compared to those involving no fuzzy quantifiers, with at least competitive performance to the alternative learning classifiers.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) has been a vital reasoning tool for sparse fuzzy rule-based systems. Throughout interpolative reasoning, an FRI system may produce a large number of interpolated rules, which generally serve no further purpose once the required outcomes have been obtained. However, this abandoned pool of interpolated rules can be used to improve the existing sparse rule base, because they contain useful information on the underlying problem domain. Efficient extraction of knowledge from such a pool of interpolated rules are indeed helpful to analyse and update the sparse rule base, leading to a dynamic sparse fuzzy rule base for building an enhanced fuzzy system. Following this idea, a genetic algorithm (GA) based dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation framework has been proposed recently. This paper presents an extension of the dynamic FRI system. In particular, it investigates different fitness functions and their effects on the outcomes of the GA-based system. A variety of fitness functions based on cluster quality indices are employed and tested, including Dunn Index, Davies-Boulding Index, Ball-Hall Index and BetaCV Index. Experimental investigation demonstrates that results obtained by the use of Dunn index or Davies-Bouldin index are better than those by Ball-Hall or BetaCV index, with those using Davies-Bouldin index performing the best overall. Such results offer an empirical guideline for the selection of the fitness function in implementing accurate GA-based dynamic FRI systems.

This paper presents a novel application of interpolation in supporting fuzzy image classification. The recently introduced Deep Spatio-Temporal Inference Network (DeSTIN) is employed to carry out limited original feature extraction. A simple but effective linear interpolation is then used to artificially increase the dimensionality of the extracted feature sets for accurate classification, without incurring heavy computational cost. In particular, Fuzzy-Rough Nearest Neighbour (FRNN) and Fuzzy Ownership Nearest Neighbour (FRNN-O) are each utilised for image classification. The work is tested against the popular MNIST dataset of handwritten digits [1]. Experimental results indicate that the proposed approach is highly promising.

The goal in group decision making is to ensure that the best decision is made with respect to the available information and knowledge possessed by all group members. However, different types of uncertainty may influence both the assessment of the individual views and the derivation of the overall group-level solution. The difficulty in such decision-making may escalate if the views of all individuals only cover part of the problem space. Systems capable of reasoning through fuzzy interpolation can help. Fuzzy rule interpolation is an important technique for performing inference with sparse rule bases. Even when a given observation has no overlap with the antecedent values of any existing rules, fuzzy rule interpolation may still derive a conclusion. This paper presents an approach for achieving group decision making via fuzzy interpolation. Individual preferences are firstly aggregated by means of a method learned on rough-fuzzy set theory, and rough-fuzzy interpolation is then applied to derive the group-level conclusion. Experimental investigations are carried out and the results are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed work in guaranteeing the overall decision accuracy.

Fuzzy rule interpolation offers a useful means for enhancing the robustness of fuzzy models by making inference possible in systems of only a sparse rule base. However in practical applications, the rule bases provided may contain irrelevant, redundant, or even misleading antecedents, which makes the already challenging tasks such as inference and interpolation even more difficult. The majority of the techniques developed in the literature assumes equal significance of rules and their antecedents, which may lead to biased or incorrect reasoning outcomes. This paper investigates similar problems being tackled in the area of feature selection, in an attempt to identify techniques that can be applied to measure the significance of rule antecedents. In particular, two feature evaluation methods based on correlation analysis and fuzzy-rough set theory have been examined, in order to reveal their effectiveness in determining the importance of individual antecedents, and their capabilities for discovering subsets of antecedents that provide similar reasoning accuracies as a larger set of antecedents used in the original rules. In addition, the significance values measured by the proposed method are treated as the weights associated with the relevant rule antecedents, in an effort to facilitate more appropriate selection of, and interactions with the rules in performing both forward and backward fuzzy rule interpolation via scale and move transformation-based methods. Experimental studies based on a practical scenario concerning terrorist activities and also synthetic random data are conducted, demonstrating the potential and efficacy of the proposed work.

Rough set theory has proven to be a useful mathematical basis for developing automated computational approaches which are able to deal with and utilise imperfect knowledge. Fuzzy-rough set theory is an extension to rough set theory and enhances the ability to model uncertainty and vagueness more effectively. There have been many developments in this area which offer robust methods for feature selection or instance selection. However, these are often carried out in isolation rather than considering both types of selection simultaneously. For this purpose, the notion of a bireduct has been proposed recently but the task of finding bireducts of high quality remains a significant challenge. This paper presents a heuristic strategy for the identification of fuzzy-rough bireducts, which is based on a music-inspired global optimisation algorithm called harmony search. The concept of e-bireducts is employed in this approach for the evaluation and improvisation of the candidate solutions. The stochastically-selected bireducts are also utilised to construct classifier ensembles. The presented technique is experimentally evaluated using a number of real-valued benchmark data sets.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) is a well established area for reducing the complexity of fuzzy models and for making inference possible in sparse rule-based systems. Regardless of the actual FRI approach employed, the interpolative reasoning process generally produces a large number of interpolated rules, which are then discarded as soon as the required outcomes have been obtained. However, these interpolated rules may contain potentially useful information, e.g., covering regions that were uncovered by the original sparse rule base. Thus, such rules should be exploited in order to develop a dynamic rule base for improving the overall system coverage and efficacy. This paper presents a genetic algorithm based dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation framework, for the purpose of selecting, combining, and promoting informative, frequently used intermediate rules into the existing rule base. Simulations are employed to demonstrate the proposed method, showing better accuracy and robustness than that achievable through conventional FRI that uses just the original sparse rule base.

Aggregation operators are useful tools which summarise multiple inputs to a single output. In practice, inputs to such operators are variables which represent different criteria, measurements, or opinions from experts. In this paper, a nearest neighbour-guided induced OWA operator, abbreviated as kNN-IOWA, is proposed as a special case of the generic induced OWA where the input arguments are ordered by the average distances to their k nearest neighbours. The weighting vectors in kNN-IOWA are defined, which are used to interpret the overall behaviour of the operator's reliability. kNN-IOWA is applied for building aggregated fuzzy relations between academic journals, based on their indicator scores. It combines the similarities between academic journals to assess their performance with respect to different journal impact indicators. The work is compared against different types of aggregation operator and tested on six bibliometric datasets. The results of experimental evaluation demonstrate that kNN-IOWA outperforms other aggregation operators in terms of standard accuracy and within-1 accuracy. The proposed method also exhibits the advantages of being more intuitive and interpretable.

Cluster ensemble offers an effective approach for aggregating multiple clustering results in order to improve the overall clustering robustness and stability. It also helps improve accuracy by combing clustering results from component methods that utilise different parameters (e.g., number of clusters), avoiding the need for carefully pre-setting the values of such parameters in a single clustering process. Since founded, many topics regarding cluster ensemble have been proposed and promising results gained. These include the generation of ensemble members and consensus of ensemble members. In this paper, link-based consensus methods for the ensemble of fuzzy c-means are proposed. Different from traditional clustering techniques, the clusters which are generated by fuzzy c-means are fuzzy sets. The proposed methods therefore employ a fuzzy graph to represent the relationships between component clusters upon which to derive the final ensemble clustering results. Using various benchmark datasets, the proposed methods are tested against typical traditional methods. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed fuzzy-link-based clustering ensemble approach generally outperforms the others in terms of accuracy.

Fuzzy rule interpolation enables fuzzy inference with sparse rule bases by interpolating inference results, and may help to reduce system complexity by removing similar (often redundant) neighbouring rules. In particular, the recently proposed closed form fuzzy interpolation offers a unique approach which guarantees convex interpolated results in a closed form. However, the difficulty in defining the required precise-valued membership functions still poses significant restrictions over the applicability of this approach. Such limitations can be alleviated by employing type-2 fuzzy sets as their membership functions are themselves fuzzy. This paper extends the closed form fuzzy rule interpolation using interval type-2 fuzzy sets. In this way, as illustrated in the experiments, closed form fuzzy interpolation is able to deal with uncertainty in data and knowledge with more flexibility.

This paper presents a novel approach for image classification, by integrating the concepts of deep machine learning and feature interpolation. In particular, a recently introduced learning architecture, the Deep Spatio-Temporal Inference Network (DeSTIN) [1] is employed to perform feature extraction for support vector machine (SVM) based image classification. Linear interpolation and Newton polynomial interpolation are each applied to support the classification. This approach converts feature sets of an originally low-dimensionality into those of a significantly higher dimensionality while gaining overall computational simplification. The work is tested against the popular MNIST dataset of handwritten digits [2]. Experimental results indicate that the proposed approach is highly promising.

The ability of pointing is recognised as an essential skill of a robot in its communication and social interaction. This paper introduces a developmental learning approach to robotic pointing, by exploiting the interactions between a human and a robot. The approach is inspired through observing the process of human infant development. It works by first applying a reinforcement learning algorithm to guide the robot to create attempt movements towards a salient object that is out of the robot’s initial reachable space. Through such movements, a human demonstrator is able to understand the robot desires to touch the target and consequently, to assist the robot to eventually reach the object successfully. The human–robot interaction helps establish the understanding of pointing gestures in the perception of both the human and the robot. From this, the robot can collect the successful pointing gestures in an effort to learn how to interact with humans. Developmental constraints are utilised to drive the entire learning procedure. The work is supported by experimental evaluation, demonstrating that the proposed approach can lead the robot to gradually gain the desirable pointing ability. It also allows that the resulting robot system exhibits similar developmental progress and features as with human infants.

Classifier ensembles constitute one of the main research directions in machine learning and data mining. The use of multiple classifiers generally allows better predictive performance than that achievable with a single model. Several approaches exist in the literature that provide means to construct and aggregate such ensembles. However, these ensemble systems contain redundant members that, if removed, may further increase group diversity and produce better results. Smaller ensembles also relax the memory and storage requirements, reducing system's run-time overhead while improving overall efficiency. This paper extends the ideas developed for feature selection problems to support classifier ensemble reduction, by transforming ensemble predictions into training samples, and treating classifiers as features. Also, the global heuristic harmony search is used to select a reduced subset of such artificial features, while attempting to maximize the feature subset evaluation. The resulting technique is systematically evaluated using high dimensional and large sized benchmark datasets, showing a superior classification performance against both original, unreduced ensembles, and randomly formed subsets.

Fuzzy rule interpolation offers a useful means to enhancing the robustness of fuzzy models by making inference possible in sparse rule-based systems. However, in real-world applications of interconnected rule bases, situations may arise when certain crucial antecedents are absent from given observations. If such missing antecedents were involved in the subsequent interpolation process, the final conclusion would not be deducible using conventional means. To address this important issue, a new approach named backward fuzzy rule interpolation and extrapolation (BFRIE) is proposed in this paper, allowing the observations, which directly relate to the conclusion to be inferred or interpolated from the known antecedents and conclusion. This approach supports both backward interpolation and extrapolation which involve multiple fuzzy rules, with each having multiple antecedents. As such, it significantly extends the existing fuzzy rule interpolation techniques. In particular, considering that there may be more than one antecedent value missing in an application problem, two methods are proposed in an attempt to perform backward interpolation with multiple missing antecedent values. Algorithms are given to implement the approaches via the use of the scale and move transformation-based fuzzy interpolation. Experimental studies that are based on a real-world scenario are provided to demonstrate the potential and efficacy of the proposed work.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) is an important technique for performing inference with sparse rule bases. Even when a given observation has no overlap with the antecedent values of any existing rules, FRI may still derive a conclusion. In particular, the scale and move transformation-based approach can handle interpolation and extrapolation with multiple multi-antecedent rules. However, the difficulty in defining the required precise-valued membership functions significantly restricts the application of FRI. Type-2 fuzzy sets help to alleviate such limitations because their membership functions are themselves fuzzy. This paper extends the existing transformation-based approach of FRI by using interval type-2 fuzzy sets. The proposed approach not only facilitates the definition of representative values of interval type-2 fuzzy sets, but also modifies the underlying FRI technique to ensure intuitive interpolated conclusions. The experimentation demonstrates that the proposed approach can deal with uncertainty in FRI in a more flexible way, extending the potential of conventional FRI techniques.

Various strategies have been exploited for the task of feature selection, in an effort to identify more compact and better quality feature subsets. Most existing approaches focus on selecting from a static pool of training instances with a fixed number of original features. However, in practice, data may be gradually refined, and information regarding the problem domain may be actively added or removed. In this paper, a technique based on fuzzy-rough sets is extended to support dynamic feature selection. The proposed method is capable of carrying out on-line selection with incrementally added features or instances. Also, the cases of feature or instance removal are investigated. This brings a novel and beneficial addition to the current research in feature selection. Four possible dynamic selection scenarios are considered, with algorithms proposed in order to handle such individual situations. Simulated experimentation is carried out using real world benchmark data sets, in order to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed work.

Fuzzy rule interpolation offers a useful means for reducing the complexity of fuzzy models, more importantly, it makes inference possible in sparse rule-based systems. Backward fuzzy rule interpolation is a recently proposed technique which extends the potential existing methods, allowing interpolation to be carried out when a certain antecedent of observation is absent. However, only one missing antecedent may be inferred or interpolated using the other given antecedents and the consequent. In this paper, two approaches are proposed in an attempt to perform backward interpolation with multiple missing antecedent values. Both approaches assume a restricted model with multiple inputs and a single output, where every rule has the same number of antecedents. Experimental comparative studies are carried out to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed work.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) offers a useful means for reducing the complexity of fuzzy models and more importantly, it makes inference possible in sparse rule-based systems. An interpolative reasoning system may encounter a large number of interpolated rules during the process of performing FRI, which are commonly discarded once the outcomes of the input observations are obtained. However, these rules may contain potentially useful information, e.g., covering regions that were uncovered by the original sparse rule base. Thus, such rules should be exploited in order to improve the overall system coverage and efficacy. This paper presents an initial attempt towards a dynamic fuzzy rule interpolation framework, for the purpose of selecting, combining, and promoting informative, frequently used intermediate rules into the rule base. Simulations are employed to demonstrate the proposed method, showing better accuracy and robustness than that achievable through conventional FRI that uses just the original sparse rule base.

Fuzzy similarity relations form the basis for many developments and applications of fuzzy systems. Measures of fuzzy similarity have been proposed in the literature for comparing objects. In this paper, aggregated fuzzy relations are generated between academic journals to compare their performance with respect to different journal impact indicators. In particular, various indicators may be employed to construct several distinctive fuzzy similarity relations, which may be subsequently combined via the use of the Ordered Weighted Average (OWA) operator. This proposed aggregated measure preserves reflexivity and symmetry, with T-transitivity conditionally preserved if appropriate weighting vectors are selected. Different similarity measures and weighting vectors are compared for the task of journal clustering, in an effort to estimate the ranking of academic journals. The results of experimental evaluation demonstrate that by using OWA-aggregated relations, simple techniques such as C-means can perform well in terms of standard accuracy and within-1 accuracy. The proposed method also exhibits the advantages of being more intuitive and interpretable.

Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) is an important technique for performing inference with sparse rule bases. Even when the given observations have no overlap with the antecedent values of any rule, FRI may still derive a conclusion. Nevertheless, little existing work on FRI can handle different types of uncertainty in fuzziness. Whilst membership functions play an important role in defining fuzzy sets, it is sometimes impossible to give a precise crisp value. The uncertainty in fuzzy set membership functions makes the task of FRI more difficult. Rough set theory is a useful tool to deal with incomplete knowledge by the introduction of the concepts of lower and upper approximations. This paper proposes a new extension to conventional FRI by representing uncertain fuzzy set membership functions with a specific type of rough-fuzzy approximation. The proposed method follows the scale and move transformation approach to performing interpolation, and can deal with rule interpolation in a more flexible way.

The automated generation of feature pattern based if-then rules is essential to the success of many intelligent pattern classifiers, especially when their inference results are expected to be directly human-comprehensible. Fuzzy and rough set theories have been applied with much success to this area as well as to feature selection. Both applications involve the use of equivalence classes for a successful operation, it is therefore intuitive to combine them into a single integrated method. In this paper, a hybrid approach to fuzzy-rough rule induction is proposed. It employs the harmony search algorithm to generate and improvise the emerging rule sets, and thus, allows the method to converge to a concise, meaningful and accurate set of rules. The efficacy of the algorithm is experimentally evaluated against leading classifiers, including fuzzy and rough rule inducers.

There is a growing interest in applying computational intelligence in the predictive toxicology (PT) domain, where a large number of predictive models are becoming available. Evaluation of such models is therefore considered to be a crucial part of their development and potential use, especially for regulatory purposes. The current evaluation approaches mainly focus on statistical measures of model performance, and few of them have taken data quality into consideration. However, it has been well recognised that datasets and models should not be considered in isolation. This paper proposes a new confidence index for evaluating PT models. A fuzzy complex number (FCN) framework is expanded in an effort to represent and evaluate dataset and regression-based model quality in a two-dimensional manner, thereby ensuring the linguistic evaluation is transparent and explainable. The utility and applicability of this research is illustrated by an experiment which evaluates 17 regression-based PT models. The experimental results have been compared and analysed against existing methods, and show that the FCN-based approach provides a consistent and interpretable means of model assessment. The proposed indexing mechanism can be used, together with customised statistical measures, in assisting PT model selection. This approach also helps to capture the relationships between datasets and models, and contributes to the development of data and model governance in PT.

Fuzzy rule interpolation is well known for reducing the complexity of fuzzy models and making inference possible in sparse rule-based systems. However, in practical applications with inter-connected subsets of rules, situations may arise when a crucial antecedent of observation is absent, either due to human error or difficulty in obtaining data, while the associated conclusion may be derived according to alternative rules or even observed directly. If such missing antecedents were involved in the subsequent interpolation process, the final conclusion would not be deduced using conventional means. However, missing antecedents may be related to certain conclusion and therefore, may be inferred or interpolated using the known antecedents and conclusion. For this purpose, this paper presents a novel approach termed backward fuzzy rule interpolation and extrapolation. In particular, the approach supports both interpolation and extrapolation which involve multiple intertwined fuzzy rules, with each having multiple antecedents. An algorithm is given to implement the approach via the use of the scale and move transformation-based fuzzy interpolation. The algorithm makes use of trapezoidal fuzzy membership functions. Realistic application examples are provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the approach.

Alias detection has been the significant subject being extensively studied for several domain applications, especially intelligence data analysis. Many preliminary methods rely on text-based measures, which are ineffective with false descriptions of terrorists' name, date-of-birth, and address. This barrier may be overcome through link information presented in relationships among objects of interests. Several numerical link-based similarity techniques have proven effective for identifying similar objects in the Internet and publication domains. However, as a result of exceptional cases with unduly high measure, these methods usually generate inaccurate similarity descriptions. Yet, they are either computationally inefficient or ineffective for alias detection with a single-property based model. This paper presents a novel orders-of-magnitude based similarity measure that integrates multiple link properties to refine the estimation process and derive semantic-rich similarity descriptions. The approach is based on order-of-magnitude reasoning with which the theory of fuzzy set is blended to provide quantitative semantics of descriptors and their unambiguous mathematical manipulation. With such explanatory formalism, analysts can validate the generated results and partly resolve the problem of false positives. It also allows coherent interpretation and communication within a decision-making group, using this computing-with-word capability. Its performance is evaluated over a terrorism-related data set, with further generalization over publication and email data collections.

Many search strategies have been exploited for the task of feature selection (FS), in an effort to identify more compact and better quality subsets. Such work typically involves the use of greedy hill climbing (HC), or nature-inspired heuristics, in order to discover the optimal solution without going through exhaustive search. In this paper, a novel FS approach based on harmony search (HS) is presented. It is a general approach that can be used in conjunction with many subset evaluation techniques. The simplicity of HS is exploited to reduce the overall complexity of the search process. The proposed approach is able to escape from local solutions and identify multiple solutions owing to the stochastic nature of HS. Additional parameter control schemes are introduced to reduce the effort and impact of parameter configuration. These can be further combined with the iterative refinement strategy, tailored to enforce the discovery of quality subsets. The resulting approach is compared with those that rely on HC, genetic algorithms, and particle swarm optimization, accompanied by in-depth studies of the suggested improvements.

Classifier ensembles constitute one of the main research directions in machine learning and data mining. Ensembles allow higher accuracy to be achieved which is otherwise often not achievable with a single classifier. A number of approaches have been adopted for constructing classifier ensembles and aggregate ensemble decisions. In most cases, these constructed ensembles contain redundant members that, if removed, may further increase ensemble diversity and produce better results. Smaller ensembles also relax the memory and storage requirements of an ensemble system, reducing its run time overhead while improving overall efficiency. In this paper, a new approach to classifier ensemble selection based on fuzzy rough feature selection and harmony search is proposed. By transforming the ensemble predictions into training samples, classifiers are treated as features. Harmony search is then used to select a minimal subset of such artificial features that maximises the fuzzy-rough dependency measure. The resulting technique is compared against the original ensemble and ensembles formed using random selection, under both single algorithm and mixed classifier ensemble environments.

Fuzzy-rough sets play an important role in dealing with imprecision and uncertainty for discrete and real-valued or noisy data. However, there are some problems associated with the approach from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. These problems have motivated the hybridisation of fuzzy-rough sets with kernel methods. Existing work which hybridises fuzzy-rough sets and kernel methods employs a constraint that enforces the transitivity of the fuzzy T-norm operation. In this paper, such a constraint is relaxed and a new kernel-based fuzzy-rough set approach is introduced. Based on this, novel kernel-based fuzzy-rough nearest-neighbour algorithms are proposed. The work is supported by experimental evaluation, which shows that the new kernel-based methods offer improvements over the existing fuzzy-rough nearest neighbour classifiers. The abstract goes here.

Adaptive fuzzy interpolation strengthens the potential of fuzzy interpolative reasoning. It first identifies all possible sets of faulty fuzzy reasoning components, termed the candidates, each of which may have led to all the contradictory interpolations. It then tries to modify one selected candidate in an effort to remove all the contradictions and thus restore interpolative consistency. This approach assumes that all the candidates are equally likely to be the real culprit. However, this may not be the case in real situations as certain identified reasoning components may be more liable to resulting in inconsistencies than others. This paper extends the adaptive approach by prioritizing all the generated candidates. This is achieved by exploiting the certainty degrees of fuzzy reasoning components and hence of derived propositions. From this, the candidate with the highest priority is modified first. This extension helps to quickly spot the real culprit and thus considerably improves the approach in terms of efficiency.

Adaptive fuzzy interpolation strengthens the potential of fuzzy interpolative reasoning. It views interpolation procedures as artificially created system components, and identifies all possible sets of faulty components that may each have led to all detected contradictory results. From this, a modification procedure takes place, which tries to modify each of such components, termed candidates, in an effort to remove all the contradictions and thus restore consistency. This approach assumes that the employed interpolation mechanism is the only cause of contradictions, that is all given observations and rules are believed to be true and fixed. However, this may not be the case in certain real situations. It is common in fuzzy systems that each observation or rule is associated with a certainty degree. This paper extends the adaptive approach by taking into consideration both observations and rules also, treating them as diagnosable and modifiable components in addition to interpolation procedures. Accordingly, the modification procedure is extended to cover the cases of modifying observations or rules in a given rule base along with the modification of fuzzy reasoning components. This extension significantly improves the robustness of the existing adaptive approach.

Many approaches have been developed for academic performance evaluation using various fuzzy techniques. Initial methods rely greatly on experts' specification of analytical parameters, without making use of valuable information embedded in collected data. Given this insight, fuzzy rule induction has recently been studied as a data-driven alternative. Despite its efficiency and reported performance, the fuzzy subsethood metric representing the strength of relations between system variables is only used at a coarse level, with the underlying semantics being unfortunately distorted via a local re-scaling scheme. To overcome this problem, a novel fuzzy classification system is introduced in this paper, in which the existing measure is used to its full potential via the methodology of qualitative link analysis. With a network representation where variables and their relations are encoded as graph nodes and edges, the classification of a new instance conceptually becomes a problem of link-based similarity estimation that can be effectively resolved using the proposed fuzzy qualitative model. This new approach has been evaluated against the existing rule-based method, revealing significant advantages of the present work.

Fuzzy interpolative reasoning strengthens the power of fuzzy inference by the enhancement of the robustness of fuzzy systems and the reduction of the systems’ complexity. However, after a series of interpolations, it is possible that multiple object values for a common variable are inferred, leading to inconsistency in interpolated results. Such inconsistencies may result from defective interpolated rules or incorrect interpolative transformations. This paper presents a novel approach for identification and correction of defective rules in interpolative transformations, thereby removing the inconsistencies. In particular, an assumption-based truth-maintenance system (ATMS) is used to record dependences between interpolations, and the underlying technique that the classical general diagnostic engine (GDE) employs for fault localization is adapted to isolate possible faulty interpolated rules and their associated interpolative transformations. From this, an algorithm is introduced to allow for the modification of the original linear interpolation to become first-order piecewise linear. The approach is applied to a realistic problem, which predicates the diarrheal disease rates in remote villages, to demonstrate the potential of this study.

The measure of data reliability has recently proven useful for a number of data analysis tasks. This paper extends the underlying metric to a new problem of soft subspace clustering. The concept of subspace clustering has been increasingly recognized as an effective alternative to conventional algorithms (which search for clusters without differentiating the significance of different data attributes). While a large number of crisp subspace approaches have been proposed, only a handful of soft counterparts are developed with the common goal of acquiring the optimal cluster-specific dimension weights. Most soft subspace clustering methods work based on the exploitation of k-means and greatly rely on the iteratively disclosed cluster centers for the determination of local weights. Unlike such wrapper techniques, this paper presents a filter approach which is efficient and generally applicable to different types of clustering. Systematical experimental evaluations have been carried out over a collection of published gene expression data sets. The results demonstrate that the reliability-based methods generally enhance their corresponding baseline models and outperform several well-known subspace clustering algorithms.

This paper presents an extension of the assumption-based truth maintenance system (ATMS), called "credibilistic ATMS," which has the capability to cope with uncertain justifications and assumptions. Such justifications and assumptions are represented and dealt with in the framework of credibility theory. Important concepts in ATMS such as environments, labels, logical consequences, and consistency are redefined by the use of credibility measure. Based on these concepts, the label-updating procedure of the classical ATMS is extended, allowing effective computation of the membership function of any node within the network and that of its supporting environment. In addition, the contradictory environments can be captured with respect to their inconsistency degrees. This paper is compared to the most relevant existing research (i.e., ATMS using necessity as the truth value and ATMS using possibility as the truth value), demonstrating the significant improvements made. This paper also presents an illustrative application of credibilistic ATMS in supporting automated construction of domain models.

Many search strategies have been exploited in implementing feature selection, in an effort to identify smaller and better subsets. Such work typically involves the use of heuristics in one form or another. In this paper two novel methods are presented by applying harmony search to feature selection. In particular, it demonstrates the potential of utilising this search mechanism in combination with fuzzy-rough feature evaluation. The resulting techniques are compared with approaches that rely on hill-climbing, genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimisation.

This paper describes a novel, principled approach to real-valued dataset reduction based on fuzzy and rough set theory. The approach is based on the formulation of fuzzy-rough discernibility matrices, that can be transformed into a satisfiability problem; an extension of rough set approaches that only apply to discrete datasets. The fuzzy-rough hybrid reduction method is then realised algorithmically by a modified version of a traditional satisifability approach. This produces an efficient and provably optimal approach to data reduction that works well on a number of machine learning benchmarks in terms of both time and classification accuracy.

Adaptive fuzzy interpolation strengthens the potential of fuzzy interpolative reasoning owning to its efficient identification and correction of defective interpolated rules during the interpolation process. This approach assumes that: i) two closest adjacent rules which flank the observation or a previously inferred result are always available; ii) only single-antecedent rules are involved. In practice, however, variable values of these rules may lie just on one side of the observation or inferred result. Also, there may be certain rules with multiple antecedents in the rule base. This paper extends the adaptive approach, in order to cover fuzzy extrapolation and to support rule base with multiple-antecedent rules. Adaptive fuzzy interpolation and extrapolation complement each other, which jointly improve the applicability of fuzzy interpolative reasoning, as it significantly reduces the restriction over the given rule base.

The accuracy of methods for the assessment of mammographic risk analysis is heavily related to breast tissue characteristics. Previous work has demonstrated considerable success in developing an automatic breast tissue classification methodology which overcomes this difficulty. This paper proposes a unified approach for the application of a number of rough and fuzzy-rough set methods to the analysis of mammographic data. Indeed this is the first time that fuzzy-rough approaches have been applied to this particular problem domain. In the unified approach detailed here feature selection methods are employed for dimensionality reduction developed using rough sets and fuzzy-rough sets. A number of classifiers are then used to examine the data reduced by the feature selection approaches and assess the positive impact of these methods on classification accuracy. Additionally, this paper also employs a new fuzzy-rough classifier based on the nearest neighbour classification algorithm. The novel use of such an approach demonstrates its efficiency in improving classification accuracy for mammographic data, as well as considerably removing redundant, irrelevant, and noisy features. This is supported with experimental application to two well-known datasets. The overall result of employing the proposed unified approach is that feature selection can identify only those features which require extraction. This can have the positive effect of increasing the risk assessment accuracy rate whilst additionally reducing the time required for expert scrutiny, which in-turn means the risk analysis process is potentially quicker and involves less screening.

Automated modeling refers to automatic (re-)formulation of alternative system models that embody the simplification, abstraction, and approximation of knowledge and data for a given task. This technique is highly desirable for effective problem solving in many application domains. Over the past two decades, compositional modeling (CM) has established itself as a leading approach in automated modeling. CM is a framework to construct system models by composing generic and reusable model fragments (MFs) selected from a knowledge base. However, the existing work mainly concerns the knowledge and data that are represented by crisp and precise information. Little work has been carried out to explore its potential to deal with uncertain environments. This paper presents an innovative framework of fuzzy compositional modeling (FCM) to develop such work. The proposed approach is capable of representing and reasoning with a wide range of inexact information. An innovative notion of fuzzy complex numbers (FCNs) is developed in an effort to enable synthesis of consistent scenario descriptions from imprecise MFs. This paper also introduces the modulus of FCNs to constrain the resulting scenario descriptions. The usefulness of this study is illustrated by means of an example to construct possible scenario descriptions from given evidence, which is in support of crime investigation.

Feature Selection (FS) or Attribute Reduction techniques are employed for dimensionality reduction and aim to select a subset of the original features of a data set which are rich in the most useful information. The benefits of employing FS techniques include improved data visualization and transparency, a reduction in training and utilization times and potentially, improved prediction performance. Many approaches based on rough set theory up to now, have employed the dependency function, which is based on lower approximations as an evaluation step in the FS process. However, by examining only that information which is considered to be certain and ignoring the boundary region, or region of uncertainty, much useful information is lost. This paper examines a rough set FS technique which uses the information gathered from both the lower approximation dependency value and a distance metric which considers the number of objects in the boundary region and the distance of those objects from the lower approximation. The use of this measure in rough set feature selection can result in smaller subset sizes than those obtained using the dependency function alone. This demonstrates that there is much valuable information to be extracted from the boundary region. Experimental results are presented for both crisp and real-valued data and compared with two other FS techniques in terms of subset size, runtimes, and classification accuracy.

The intuition of data reliability has recently been incorporated into the main stream of research on ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators. Instead of relying on human-guided variables, the aggregation behavior is determined in accordance with the underlying characteristics of the data being aggregated. Data-oriented operators such as the dependent OWA (DOWA) utilize centralized data structures to generate reliable weights, however. Despite their simplicity, the approach taken by these operators neglects entirely any local data structure that represents a strong agreement or consensus. To address this issue, the cluster-based OWA (Clus-DOWA) operator has been proposed. It employs a cluster-based reliability measure that is effective to differentiate the accountability of different input arguments. Yet, its actual application is constrained by the high computational requirement. This paper presents a more efficient nearest-neighbor-based reliability assessment for which an expensive clustering process is not required. The proposed measure can be perceived as a stress function, from which the OWA weights and associated decision-support explanations can be generated. To illustrate the potential of this measure, it is applied to both the problem of information aggregation for alias detection and the problem of unsupervised feature selection (in which unreliable features are excluded from an actual learning process). Experimental results demonstrate that these techniques usually outperform their conventional state-of-the-art counterparts.

Within the past decades, many fuzzy aggregation techniques, ordered weighted averaging (OWA) in particular, have proven effective for a wide range of information processing tasks, such as decision making, image analysis, database and machine learning. Despite reported successes, their potentials have yet to be explored for the emerging problem of link analysis, which aims to discover similarity and relations amongst objects through their associations. Recently, several link-based similarity methods have been put forward to identifying similar objects in the Internet and publication domains. However, these techniques only take into account the cardinality property of a link structure that is highly sensitive to noise and causes a great number of false positives. In light of such challenge, this paper presents a novel OWA aggregation model that is capable of efficiently deriving a similarity measure through the integration of multiple link properties. The underlying approach is based on the methodology of stress function by which the aggregation behavior can be easily interpreted and modeled. In addition, a semi-supervised method is introduced to assist a user in designing a stress function, i.e. the weighting scheme of link properties, appropriate for a particular link network. The application of the OWA aggregation approach to alias detection is demonstrated and evaluated, against state-of-art link-based techniques, over datasets specifically related to terrorism, publication and email domains.

Dealing with various inexact pieces of information has become an intrinsically important issue in knowledge-based reasoning, because many problem domains involve imprecise, incomplete and uncertain information. Indeed, different approaches exist for reasoning with inexact knowledge and data. However, the common strategy they adopt is to integrate various types of inexact information into a global measure. This may destroy the underlying semantics associated with different information components. This paper presents an innovative notion of fuzzy complex numbers (FCNs), which extends real complex numbers to representing two-dimensional uncertainties conjunctively without necessarily integrating them. This new framework is applied to supporting compositional modelling (CM). In particular, calculus of FCNs over arithmetic and propositional relations is developed to entail scenario model synthesis from model fragments, and modulus of FCNs is introduced to constrain the scenario descriptions. The utility and usefulness of this work are illustrated by means of an example for constructing possible scenario descriptions from given evidence in the crime investigation domain.

Fuzzy interpolative reasoning plays an important role in fuzzy modelling as it not only helps to reduce the number of rules in a rule base, but also provides an inference mechanism for sparse rule bases. In interpolation, it is desirable to preserve piece-wise linearity as piece-wise linear results can thus be inferred from piece-wise linear rules and observations. This safely ensures the ignorance of non-characteristic points in performing interpolations. However, almost all existing fuzzy interpolative reasoning methods do not preserve piecewise linearity for general polygonal fuzzy sets. This paper, based on the work of, proposes a new interpolative method which preserves this property.

The automated generation of feature pattern-based if-then rules is essential to the success of many intelligent pattern classifiers, especially when their inference results are expected to be directly human-comprehensible. Fuzzy and rough set theory have been applied with much success to this area as well as to feature selection. Since both applications of rough set theory involve the processing of equivalence classes for their successful operation, it is natural to combine them into a single integrated method that generates concise, meaningful and accurate rules. This paper proposes such an approach, based on fuzzy-rough sets. The algorithm is experimentally evaluated against leading classifiers, including fuzzy and rough rule inducers, and shown to be effective.

One of the many successful applications of rough set theory has been to the area of feature selection. The rough set principle of using only the supplied data and no other information has many benefits, where most other methods require supplementary knowledge. Fuzzy-rough set theory has recently been proposed as an extension of this, in order to better handle the uncertainty present in real data. However, following this approach, there has been no investigation (theoretical or otherwise) into how to deal with missing values effectively, another problem encountered when using real world data. This paper proposes an extension of the fuzzy-rough feature selection methodology, based on interval-valued fuzzy sets, as a means to counter this problem via the representation of missing values in an intuitive way.

The use of linguistic rulesets is considered one of the greatest advantages that fuzzy classification systems can offer compared to non-fuzzy classification systems. This paper proposes the use of fuzzy thresholds and fuzzy quantifiers for generating linguistic rulesets from a data-driven fuzzy subsethood-based classification system. The proposed technique offers not only simplicity in the design and comprehensibility of the generated rulesets but also practicality in the implementation. Additionally, the use of fuzzy quantifiers makes it easier for the user to understand the classification process and how such classifications were reached. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using a medical dataset which provides evidence that rules generated by the proposed system are consistent with the expert-rules created by clinicians.

Fuzzy interpolative reasoning has been extensively studied due to its ability to enhance the robustness of fuzzy systems and to reduce system complexity. However, during the interpolation process, it is possible that multiple object values for a common variable are inferred which may lead to inconsistency in interpolated results. Such inconsistencies may result from defective interpolated rules or incorrect interpolative transformations. This paper presents a novel approach for identification and correction of defective rules in transformations, thereby removing the inconsistencies. In particular, an assumption-based truth maintenance system (ATMS) is used to record dependencies between reasoning results and interpolated rules, while the underlying technique that the general diagnostic engine (GDE) employs for fault localization is adapted to isolate possible faulty interpolated rules and their associated interpolative transformations. From this, an algorithm is introduced to allow for the modification of the original linear interpolation to become first-order piecewise linear. The approach is applied to a carefully chosen practical problem to illustrate the potential in strengthening the power of interpolative reasoning.

Combating identity fraud is prominent and urgent since false identity has become the common denominator of all serious crime. Among many identified identity attributes, personal names are commonly falsified or aliased by most criminals and terrorists. Typical approaches to such name disambiguation rely on the text-based similarity measures, which are efficient to some extent, but severely fail to handle highly deceptive and unknown identities. In light of aforementioned shortcoming, this paper presents an intelligent hybrid approach that proficiently combines both content-based and link-based measures of examined names to refine the justification of their similarity. In particular, a new link-based method that exploits multiple link properties is introduced and deployed within the proposed hybrid mechanism. The experimental evaluation of this measure and the hybrid model against other link-based and text-based techniques, over a terrorist-related dataset, significantly indicates their great potentials towards an effective verification system.

This paper presents a novel study of the classification of large-scale Mars McMurdo panorama image. Three dimensionality reduction techniques, based on fuzzy-rough sets, information gain ranking, and principal component analysis respectively, are each applied to this complicated image data set to support learning effective classifiers. The work allows the induction of low-dimensional feature subsets from feature patterns of a much higher dimensionality. To facilitate comparative investigations, two types of image classifier are employed here, namely multi-layer perceptrons and K-nearest neighbors. Experimental results demonstrate that feature selection helps to increase the classification efficiency by requiring considerably less features, while improving the classification accuracy by minimizing redundant and noisy features. This is of particular significance for on-board image classification in future Mars rover missions.

The evaluation of glass evidence in forensic science is an important issue. Traditionally, this has depended on the comparison of the physical and chemical attributes of an unknown fragment with a control fragment. A high degree of discrimination between glass fragments is now achievable due to adv ances in analytical capabilities. A random effects model using two levels of hierarchical nesting is applied to the calculation of a likelihood ratio (LR) as a solution to the problem of comparison between two sets of replicated continuous observations where it is unknown whether the sets of measurements shared a common origin. Replicate measurements from a population of such measurements allow the calculation of both within-group and between-group variances. Univariate normal kernel estimation procedures have been used for this, where the between-group distribution is considered to be non-normal. However, the choice of variable for use in LR estimation is critical to the quality of LR produced. This paper investigates the use of feature selection for the purpose of selecting the variable for estimation without the need for expert knowledge. Results are recorded for several selectors using normal, exponential, adaptive and biweight kernel estimation techniques. Misclassification rates for the LR estimators are used to measure performance. The experiments performed reveal the capability of the proposed approach for this task.

Bayesian networks are a useful tool in the representation of uncertain knowledge. This paper proposes a new algorithm called ACO-E, to learn the structure of a Bayesian network. It does this by conducting a search through the space of equivalence classes of Bayesian networks using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). To this end, two novel extensions of traditional ACO techniques are proposed and implemented. Firstly, multiple types of moves are allowed. Secondly, moves can be given in terms of indices that are not based on construction graph nodes. The results of testing show that ACO-E performs better than a greedy search and other state-of-the-art and metaheuristic algorithms whilst searching in the space of equivalence classes.

There has been great interest in developing methodologies that are capable of dealing with imprecision and uncertainty. The large amount of research currently being carried out in fuzzy and rough sets is representative of this. Many deep relationships have been established, and recent studies have concluded as to the complementary nature of the two methodologies. Therefore, it is desirable to extend and hybridize the underlying concepts to deal with additional aspects of data imperfection. Such developments offer a high degree of flexibility and provide robust solutions and advanced tools for data analysis. Fuzzy-rough set-based feature (FS) selection has been shown to be highly useful at reducing data dimensionality but possesses several problems that render it ineffective for large datasets. This paper proposes three new approaches to fuzzy-rough FS-based on fuzzy similarity relations. In particular, a fuzzy extension to crisp discernibility matrices is proposed and utilized. Initial experimentation shows that the methods greatly reduce dimensionality while preserving classification accuracy.

A recent TRANSACTIONS ON FUZZY SYSTEMS paper proposing a new fuzzy-rough feature selector (FRFS) has claimed that the more attributes remain in datasets, the better the approximations and hence resulting models. [Tsang ,IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Syst., vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 1130-1141]. This claim has been used as a primary criticism of the original FRFS method [Jensen and Shen,IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Syst., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 73-89, Feb. 2007]. Although, in certain applications, it may be necessary to consider as many features as possible, the claim is contrary to the motivation behind feature selection concerning the curse of dimensionality, the presence of redundant and irrelevant features, and the large amount of literature documenting observed improvements in modeling techniques following data reduction. This letter discusses this issue, as well as two other issues raised by Tsang [IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Syst., vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 1130-1141, Oct. 2008] regarding the original algorithm.

Aggregation operators are crucial to integrating diverse decision makerspsila opinion. While minimum and maximum can represent optimistic and pessimistic extremes, an ordered weighted aggregation (OWA) operator is able to reflect varied human attitudes lying between the two using distinct weight vectors. Several weight determination techniques ignore characteristics of data being aggregated. In contrary, data-oriented operators like centered OWA and dependent OWA utilize the centralized data structure to generate reliable weights. Values near the center of a group receive higher weights than those further away. Despite its general applicability, this perspective entirely neglects any local data structures representing strong agreements or consensus. This paper presents a new dependent OWA operator (Clus-DOWA) that applies distributed structure of data or data clusters to determine its weight vector. The reliability of weights created by DOWA and Clus-DOWA operators are experimentally compared in the tasks of classification and unsupervised feature selection.

Given a set of collected evidence and a knowledge base, fuzzy compositional modelling (FCM) begins by retrieving model fragments which are the most likely to be relevant to the available data. Since FCM often involves imprecise and uncertain information, a match between the available data and the knowledge base cannot in general be done precisely, partial matching may suffice. This paper proposes a more flexible fuzzy model fragment retrieval mechanism to match data items with broader, including possibly subjective information in the knowledge base. It is capable of retrieving those model fragments that can approximately match the collected evidence, when no exact match occurs. The retrieval process and its capability is illustrated by means of an application example.

Dataset dimensionality is undoubtedly the single most significant obstacle which exasperates any attempt to apply effective computational intelligence techniques to problem domains. In order to address this problem a technique which reduces dimensionality is employed prior to the application of any classification learning. Such feature selection (FS) techniques attempt to select a subset of the original features of a dataset which are rich in the most useful information. The benefits can include improved data visualisation and transparency, a reduction in training and utilisation times and potentially, improved prediction performance. Methods based on fuzzy-rough set theory have demonstrated this with much success. Such methods have employed the dependency function which is based on the information contained in the lower approximation as an evaluation step in the FS process. This paper presents three novel feature selection techniques employing fuzzy entropy to locate fuzzy-rough reducts. This approach is compared with two other fuzzy-rough feature selection approaches which utilise other measures for the selection of subsets.

This paper presents a methodological approach for developing image classifiers that work by exploiting the technical potential of both fuzzy-rough feature selection and neural network-based classification. The use of fuzzy-rough feature selection allows the induction of low-dimensionality feature sets from sample descriptions of real-valued feature patterns of a (typically much) higher dimensionality. The employment of a neural network trained using the induced subset of features ensures the runtime classification performance. The reduction of feature sets reduces the sensitivity of such a neural network-based classifier to its structural complexity. It also minimises the impact of feature measurement noise to the classification accuracy. This work is evaluated by applying the approach to classifying real medical cell images, supported with comparative studies.

Fuzzy interpolation does not only help to reduce the complexity of fuzzy models, but also makes inference in sparse rule-based systems possible. It has been successfully applied to systems control, but limited work exists for its applications to tasks like prediction and classification. Almost all fuzzy interpolation techniques in the literature make strong assumptions that there are two closest adjacent rules available to the observation, and that such rules must flank the observation for each attribute. Also, some interpolation approaches cannot handle fuzzy sets whose membership functions involve vertical slopes. To avoid such limitations and develop a more practical approach, this paper extends the work of Huang and Shen. The result enables both interpolation and extrapolation which involve multiple fuzzy rules, with each rule consisting of multiple antecedents. Two realistic applications, namely truck backer-upper control and computer activity prediction, are provided in this paper to demonstrate the utility of the extended approach. Experiment-based comparisons to the most commonly used Mamdani fuzzy reasoning mechanism, and to other existing fuzzy interpolation techniques are given to show the significance and potential of this research.

This short paper discusses the modeling of random fuzzy renewal reward processes in which the interarrival times and rewards are represented by nonnegative random fuzzy variables. Based on random fuzzy theory, a random fuzzy variable denotes a measurable function from a credibility space to a collection of random variables. Under this setting, the long-run expected reward per unit time is addressed and the theorem on random fuzzy renewal rewards is established. The utility of this research is demonstrated with a realistic application case.

Compositional modelling (CM) has been applied to synthesize automatically plausible scenarios in many problem domains with promising results. However, it is assumed that the generic and reusable model fragments within the knowledge base can all be expressed by precise and crisp information. This paper presents an initial attempt to extend the existing CM work to allow the generation of scenario spaces which are capable of representing, storing and supporting inference about imprecise or ill-defined data, by the use of fuzzy sets. A knowledge representation formalism for both fuzzy parameters and fuzzy constraints is incorporated into the representation of conventional model fragments. The applicability of the proposed method is illustrated by means of a simple worked example for supporting crime investigation.

One of the main obstacles facing the application of computational intelligence technologies in pattern recognition (and indeed in many other tasks) is that of dataset dimensionality. To enable pattern classifiers to be effective, a dimensionality minimization step is usually carried out beforehand. Rough set theory has been successfully applied for this as it requires only the supplied data and no other information; most other methods require supplementary knowledge. However, the main limitation of traditional rough set-based selection in the literature is the restrictive requirement that all data is discrete; it is not possible to consider real-valued or noisy data. This has been tackled previously via the use of discretization methods, but may result in information loss. This paper investigates two approaches based on rough set extensions, namely fuzzy-rough and tolerance rough sets, that address these problems and retain dataset semantics. The methods are compared experimentally and utilized for the task of forensic glass fragment identification.

Feature selection (FS) is a technique for dimensionality reduction. Its aims are to select a subset of the original features of a dataset which are rich in the most useful information. The benefits include improved data visualisation, transparency, a reduction in training and utilisation times and potentially, improved prediction performance. Many approaches based on rough set theory have employed the dependency function which is based on the information contained in the lower approximation as an evaluation step in the FS process with much success. This paper presents a novel rough set FS technique which uses the information of both the lower approximation dependency value and a distance metric for the consideration of objects in the boundary region. The use of this measure in rough set feature selection can result in smaller subset sizes than those obtained using the dependency function alone.

Attribute selection (AS) refers to the problem of selecting those input attributes or features that are most predictive of a given outcome; a problem encountered in many areas such as machine learning, pattern recognition and signal processing. Unlike other dimensionality reduction methods, attribute selectors preserve the original meaning of the attributes after reduction. This has found application in tasks that involve datasets containing huge numbers of attributes (in the order of tens of thousands) which, for some learning algorithms, might be impossible to process further. Recent examples include text processing and web content classification. AS techniques have also been applied to small and medium-sized datasets in order to locate the most informative attributes for later use. One of the many successful applications of rough set theory has been to this area. The rough set ideology of using only the supplied data and no other information has many benefits in AS, where most other methods require supplementary knowledge. However, the main limitation of rough set-based attribute selection in the literature is the restrictive requirement that all data is discrete. In classical rough set theory, it is not possible to consider real-valued or noisy data. This paper investigates a novel approach based on fuzzy-rough sets, fuzzy rough feature selection (FRFS), that addresses these problems and retains dataset semantics. FRFS is applied to two challenging domains where a feature reducing step is important; namely, web content classification and complex systems monitoring. The utility of this approach is demonstrated and is compared empirically with several dimensionality reducers. In the experimental studies, FRFS is shown to equal or improve classification accuracy when compared to the results from unreduced data. Classifiers that use a lower dimensional set of attributes which are retained by fuzzy-rough reduction outperform those that employ more attributes returned by the existing crisp rough reduction method. In addition, it is shown that FRFS is more powerful than the other AS techniques in the comparative study

FRANTIC, a system inspired by insect behaviour for inducing fuzzy IF-THEN rules, is enhanced to produce rules with linguistic hedges. FRANTIC is evaluated against an earlier version of itself and against several other fuzzy rule induction algorithms, and the results are highly encouraging. Rule comprehensibility is maintained while an improvement in the accuracy of the rulebases induced is observed. Equally important, the increase in computation expense due to the improved richness in the hypothesis language is acknowledged, and several ways of resolving this are discussed.

Feature selection (FS) is a dimensionality reduction technique that aims to select a subset of the original features of a dataset which offer the most useful information. The benefits of feature selection include improved data visualisation, transparency, reduction in training and utilisation times and improved prediction performance. Methods based on fuzzy-rough set theory (FRFS) have employed the dependency function to guide the process with much success. This paper presents a novel fuzzy-rough FS technique which is guided by fuzzy entropy. The use of this measure in fuzzy-rough feature selection can result in smaller subset sizes than those obtained through FRFS alone, with little loss or even an increase in overall classification accuracy.

Interpolative reasoning does not only help reduce the complexity of fuzzy models but also makes inference in sparse rule-based systems possible. This paper presents an interpolative reasoning method by means of scale and move transformations. It can be used to interpolate fuzzy rules involving complex polygon, Gaussian or other bell-shaped fuzzy membership functions. The method works by first constructing a new inference rule via manipulating two given adjacent rules, and then by using scale and move transformations to convert the intermediate inference results into the final derived conclusions. This method has three advantages thanks to the proposed transformations: 1) it can handle interpolation of multiple antecedent variables with simple computation; 2) it guarantees the uniqueness as well as normality and convexity of the resulting interpolated fuzzy sets; and 3) it suggests a variety of definitions for representative values, providing a degree of freedom to meet different requirements. Comparative experimental studies are provided to demonstrate the potential of this method

Fuzzy interpolation offers the potential to model problems with sparse rule bases, as opposed to dense rule bases deployed in traditional fuzzy systems. It thus supports the simplification of complex fuzzy models and facilitates inferences when only limited knowledge is available. This paper first introduces the general concept of representative values (RVs), and then uses it to present an interpolative reasoning method which can be used to interpolate fuzzy rules involving arbitrary polygonal fuzzy sets, by means of scale and move transformations. Various interpolation results over different RV implementations are illustrated to show the flexibility and diversity of this method. A realistic application shows that the interpolation-based inference can outperform the conventional inferences.

This paper presents a methodology for integrating two approaches to building decision support systems (DSS) for crime investigation: symbolic crime scenario abduction [16] and Bayesian forensic evidence evaluation [5]. This is achieved by means of a novel compositional modelling technique that allows for automatically generating a space of models describing plausible crime scenarios from given evidence and formally represented domain knowledge. The main benefit of this integration is that the resulting DSS is capable to formulate effective evidence collection strategies useful for differentiating competing crime scenarios. A running example is used to demonstrate the theoretical developments.

This work presents an extension to qualitative simulation that enables a qualitative reasoning system to support variables that exhibit delayed reactions to their constraining functions. Information stored in the previous levels of the behavior tree is retrieved and used to constrain multiple delayed variables and to capture the time-delay behavior of the system. The extension is applicable to qualitative simulators that generate time-stamped behaviors. In particular, this is implemented and integrated with the existing fuzzy qualitative simulation algorithm. Results of an example application of this extended algorithm are provided.

A new approach to fuzzy rule induction from historical data is presented. The implemented system - FRANTIC - is a tested on a simple classification problem against a fuzzy tree induction algorithm, a genetic algorithm, and a numerical method for inducing fuzzy rules based on fuzzy subsethood values. The results obtained by FRANTIC indicate comparable or better classification accuracy, superior comprehensibility, and potentially more flexibility when applied to larger data sets. The impact of the knowledge representation used when generating fuzzy rules is also highlighted.

This paper generalises the previously proposed interpolative reasoning method to cover the interpolations involving the complex polygon, Gaussian or other bell-shaped fuzzy membership functions. This can be achieved by the generality of the proposed scale and move transformations. The method works by first constructing a new inference rule via manipulating the two given adjacent rules, and then by using scale and move transformations to convert the intermediate inference results into the final derived conclusions. This generalised method has two advantages, thanks to the elegantly proposed transformations: 1) It can easily handle the interpolation of multiple antecedent variables with simple computation; and 2) It guarantees the uniqueness as well as normality and convexity of the resulting interpolated fuzzy sets. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the use of this method.

The use of fuzzy quantifiers in linguistic fuzzy models helps to build fuzzy systems that use linguistic terms in a more natural way. Although several fuzzy quantification techniques have been developed, the application of the existing techniques seems very limited. This paper proposes an application of fuzzy quantification to replace crisp weights in subsethood-based fuzzy rule models. In addition to the concern that fuzzy models should have high accuracy rate, attention has also been taken to maintain the simplicity of the generated fuzzy model. The objective is to produce quantifier-based fuzzy models which are not only readable but also practically applicable. The quantifier based fuzzy model is then applied to classification tasks. The classification accuracies of fuzzy models that use crisp weights, continuous quantifiers, multi-valued quantifiers and two-valued quantifiers are compared. Experimental results show that the classification accuracy of the fuzzy model that uses continuous quantifiers is: 1) as good as the classification accuracy of the fuzzy models that use crisp weights, and 2) in most cases, better than fuzzy models that use multi-valued quantifiers or two-valued quantifiers.

Semantics-preserving dimensionality reduction refers to the problem of selecting those input features that are most predictive of a given outcome; a problem encountered in many areas such as machine learning, pattern recognition, and signal processing. This has found successful application in tasks that involve data sets containing huge numbers of features (in the order of tens of thousands), which would be impossible to process further. Recent examples include text processing and Web content classification. One of the many successful applications of rough set theory has been to this feature selection area. This paper reviews those techniques that preserve the underlying semantics of the data, using crisp and fuzzy rough set-based methodologies. Several approaches to feature selection based on rough set theory are experimentally compared. Additionally, a new area in feature selection, feature grouping, is highlighted and a rough set-based feature grouping technique is detailed.

Fault identification is a search for possible behaviors that would explain the observed behavior of a physical system. During this search, different possible models are considered and information about the interaction between possible behaviors is derived. Much of this potentially useful information is generally ignored in conventional pure symbolic approaches to fault diagnosis, however. A novel approach is presented in this paper that exploits uncertain information on the behavioral description of system components to identify possible fault behaviors in physical systems. The work utilizes the standard conflict recognition technique developed in the framework of the general diagnostic engine (GDE) to support diagnostic inference through the production of both rewarding and penalizing evidence. In particular, Markov matrices are derived from the given evidence, thereby enabling the use of Markov chains to implement the diagnostic process. This work has resulted in a technique, which maximizes the use of derived information, for identifying candidates for multiple faults that is demonstrated to be very effective.

Recent work in forensic statistics has shown how Bayesian Networks (BNs) can be used to infer the probability of defence and prosecution statements based on forensic evidence. This is an important development as it helps to quantify the meaning of forensic expert testimony during court proceedings, for example, that there is "strong support" for the defence or prosecution position. Due to the lack of experimental data, inferred probabilities often rely on subjective probabilities provided by experts. Because these are based on informed guesses, it is very difficult to express them accurately with precise numbers. Yet, conventional BNs can only employ probabilities expressed as real numbers. To address this issue, this paper presents a novel extension of probability theory. This allow the expression of subjective probabilities as fuzzy numbers, which more faithfully reflect expert opinion. By means of practical a example, it will be shown that the accurate representation of this lack of precision in reasoning with subjective probabilities has important implications for the overall result.

The term "fuzzy probability" was first introduced in the 1970s but has since come to describe two distinct concepts which have been somewhat confused in the literature of the field. The first of these views fuzziness in probabilities as induced by fuzziness in the definition of events of interest, whereas the second uses fuzziness in probabilities as a way of modelling vagueness in subjective linguistic probability assignments. The difference between the two concepts of "fuzzy probability" examined is marked by relabelling the second "linguistic probability". An earlier attempt to provide a theory of such linguistic probabilities is then examined and found to place unreasonable restrictions on the choice of fuzzy probabilities. On the basis of this critique an improved theory is developed. Computational issues are then considered as a prelude to an example application: a Bayesian network with linguistically specified prior and conditional probabilities.

One of the main obstacles facing current fuzzy modelling techniques is that of dataset dimensionality. To enable these techniques to be effective, a redundancy-removing step is usually carried out beforehand. Rough set theory (RST) has been used as such a dataset pre-processor with much success, however it is reliant upon a crisp dataset; important information may be lost as a result of quantization. The paper proposes a dimensionality reduction technique that employs a hybrid variant of rough sets, fuzzy-rough sets, to avoid this information loss.

A major disadvantage of existing methods for tuning descriptive fuzzy models is that the usual constrains over the changes on the fuzzy membership functions do not guarantee that no radical changes in the definitions and hence, no unacceptable disruptions in the interpretability of the original model would take place. This paper proposes a new tuning method, called microtuning, which avoids drastic changes by enforcing that the possible loss in interpretability is kept to minimal. This is achieved by ensuring the modified sets to have, at least, a given degree of similarity with their original. The paper focuses on the issue of how accuracy increases as the similarity constraint is relaxed. It reveals the tradeoff between losing interpretability and gaining precision in tuning a descriptive model. Simulation results show that most of the improvement in model accuracy can be obtained without major changes in the original set definitions, microtuning may be all what is required.

This paper presents an effective and efficient approach for translating fuzzy classification rules that use approximative sets to rules that use descriptive sets and linguistic hedges of predefined meaning. It works by first generating rules that use approximative sets from training data, and then translating the resulting approximative rules into descriptive ones. Hedges that are useful for supporting such translations are provided. The translated rules are functionally equivalent to the original approximative ones, or a close equivalent given search time restrictions, while reflecting their underlying preconceived meaning. Thus, fuzzy, descriptive classifiers can be obtained by taking advantage of any existing approach to approximative modeling, which is generally efficient and accurate, while employing rules that are comprehensible to human users. Experimental results are provided and comparisons to alternative approaches given.

Although fuzzy logic has been successfully applied in many different problem domains, fuzzy solutions typically structure the problem task as one of static categorisation. This may not be appropriate for dynamic systems, especially where higher-order information is unavailable. The paper proposes an approach to reasoning about dynamic systems drawing upon the first-order approach to temporal logic. A brief overview of the classical theory is provided and extended to a fuzzy theory modelling the inherent vagueness of linguistic terms such as "recently". The notion of a temporal qualification is developed as a domain independent method for augmenting base domains and term set of a linguistic variable. Such extended variables are termed temporal linguistic variables. The technique is then applied to a simple dynamic system highlighting its advantage over traditional approaches. Since temporal linguistic variables are a special case of linguistic variable they are immediately applicable in fuzzy knowledge based system and machine learning contexts.

An approach is described that utilizes fuzzy sets to develop a fuzzy qualitative simulation algorithm that allows a semiquantitative extension to qualitative simulation, providing three significant advantages over existing techniques. Firstly, it allows a more detailed description of physical variables, through an arbitrary, but finite, discretisation of the quantity space. The adoption of fuzzy sets also allows common-sense knowledge to be represented in defining values through the use of graded membership, enabling the subjective element in system modelling to be incorporated and reasoned with in a formal way. Secondly, the fuzzy quantity space allows more detailed description of functional relationships in that both strength and sign information can be represented by fuzzy relations holding against two or multivariables. Thirdly, the quantity space allows ordering information on rates of change to be used to compute temporal durations of the state and the possible transitions. Thus, an ordering of the evolution of the states and the associated temporal durations are obtained. This knowledge is used to develop an effective temporal filter that significantly reduces the number of spurious behaviors.>